THE 
VALUE    OF    SIMPLICITY 


•M 


VALUE    o 
SIMPLICITY 


Edited  by 

Ma.ry    Minerva.    Borrows 


Introduction  by 

J  \i  1  i  a.    Wa.rd    Howe 


H.    M.    CALDWELL    CO. 
BOSTON       &       MCMV 


/rl 


Copyright,  1905 
BY  H.  M.  CALDWELL  Co. 


COLONIAL   PRESS 

Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  C.  H.  Simonds  &>  Cc. 
Boston,  U.S.A. 


INTRODUCTION 


We  are  living  in  an. age  of  show  and  splendour. 
The  ambitions  of  society  have  grown  with  its 
achievements,  and  a  spirit  of  excess  has  come 
to  prevail  among  us  which  is  likely  to  bring  with 
it  a  deterioration  of  public  taste  and  sentiment. 
There  is  need  to  bring  to  our  remembrance  the 
examples  of  a  life  less  cumbered  with  exaggera- 
tion than  that  of  our  own  time.  If  our  Republic 
is  to  continue,  we  who  form  it  must  be  republi- 
can in  our  judgment  and  feeling.  Neither  the 
manly  nor  the  womanly  virtues  will  thrive  in  an 
atmosphere  that  breeds  perpetual  unrest. 

We,  children  of  the  Puritans,  are  surely  not 
altogether  made  for  a  career  of  fuss  and  feathers. 
Our  living  must  come  out  of  the  plain  earth.  Our 
spiritual  growth  is  maintained  by  certain  vital 
principles,  which  cannot  be  discerned  in  the  ex- 
citement of  perpetual  pleasure-seeking. 

In  order  to  ascertain  where  we  stand  and 
whither  we  tend,  we  must  put  aside  the  show  and 
glitter  of  mere  frivolity,  and  give  ourselves  room 
and  leisure  for  the  lessons  of  deeper  thought. 

It  sometimes  seems  as  if  the  opposing  elements 


INTRODUCTION 

human  nature  took  shape  in  periods  of  plus 
and  minus.  The  history  of  art  shows  us  genera- 
tions which  desire  and  seek  exuberance  in  orna- 
ment and  in  style.  We  Americans  have  passed 
through  a  season  of  wearisome  adornment,  in 
which  some  sort  of  aesthetic  disguise  was  in- 
vented for  the  familiar  pieces  of  household  furni- 
ture. We  hung  embroidered  scarfs  on  easel  and 
mantelpiece,  and  made  portieres  take  the  place 
of  doors.  I  have  even  heard  of  places  remote 
from  centres  of  civilization  in  which  well-mean- 
ing housewives  adorned  or  disfigured  the  walls 
of  their  houses  with  strips  of  cotton  cloth, 
worked  in  gaudy  crewels.  A  change  of  feeling 
takes  place,  and  these  superfluities  are  swept 
away,  pleasing  no  more. 

The  thesis  which  I  advance  is  this.  Human 
beings  of  normal  character  and  condition  are 
satisfied  only  with  enjoyments  which  exercise 
their  best  faculties,  to  wit,  the  perception  of 
beauty  and  harmony,  and  of  the  high  ideals  of 
thought  and  conduct  to  which  humanity  is  able  to 
aspire.  To  these  noble  satisfactions  luxury  pre- 
sents a  bar.  It  will  have  us  occupied  with  itself, 
and  so  diverts  our  attention  from  what  we  should 
most  covet  to  enjoy. 

Let  us  take  for  an  instance  the  pleasure  which 
good  music  ought  to  give.  This  pleasure  is  of  so 
high  a  grade  that  one  should  bring  to  it  calm 
thought  and  concentrated  attention. 


INTRODUCTION 


Fashionables  at  an  opera  regard  little  the  fine 
harmonies  presented.  They  chatter,  flirt,  and 
gossip.  The  artists  feel  this  neglect  and  can 
derive  no  inspiration  from  an  audience  so  be- 
having. Dress,  personal  ambition  and  restless 
activity  fill  the  minds  of  their  hearers,  and  the 
divine  lesson  of  high  contentment  is  not  learned. 

Life  is  full  of  oracles,  sources  of  delight  and 
instruction  which  can  lift  it  with  a  fine  inspira- 
tion. But  in  order  to  profit  by  the  oracles  we 
must  listen  to  them,  and  not  to  the  noise  of  the 
streets. 

We  claim  to  derive  our  ideas  of  beauty  from 
ancient  Greece.  We  should  remember  that  sim- 
plicity was  a  ruling  element  in  Greek  art.  We 
shall  find  it  in  the  structure  of  their  temples,  in 
the  perfection  of  their  sculpture,  in  the  stern 
majesty  of  their  drama,  and  not  less  in  their  im- 
mortal philosophy.  Greece  in  time  lost  her  hold 
upon  these  great  possessions,  but  they  became 
the  property  of  the  human  world  for  all  ages. 
In  the  literature  of  Rome,  we  find  traces  of  the 
great  inheritance.  Virgil  takes  up  the  tale  of 
Troy  where  Homer  left  it.  Cicero  quotes  and 
expounds  Aristotle.  The  poet  Horace,  proud 
of  imitating  the  metres  of  Greek  poetry,  pre- 
serves also  something  of  its  spirit.  Let  us 
quote,  for  example,  the  ode  beginning  with  this 
line: 

"  Persicos  odi,  puer,  apparatus," 


INTRODUCTION 

Mr.  Thackeray  has  left  us  an  amusing 
paraphrase. 

Well  might  the  poet  deprecate  the  Oriental 
luxury  which  was  destined  to  undermine  the 
splendid  edifice  of  Roman  supremacy.  Horace 
was  no  ascetic,  and  the  element  of  pleasure  has 
full  scope  in  his  verse.  But  he  finds  this  pleasure 
in  simplicity  of  life,  and  his  appreciation  of  it 
constantly  finds  expression  in  his  poems.  He 
invites  one  friend  to  share  his  frugal  repast  and 
indifferent  wine. 

"  Vile  potabis  modi  cis  Sabinum  cantharis." 

He  admonishes  another  that  the  miser's  treasure, 
buried  in  the  earth,  neither  shines  nor  delights. 
He  once  boasts: 

"  Pauperum  me  dives  petit." 

"  The  rich  man  visits  me,  the  poor  man  "  —  well 
content  to  be  poor  in  this  world's  goods  while 
he  is  rich  in  what  he  values  far  more.  The 
luxury  of  congenial  work,  of  simple  and  sincere 
companionship,  the  view  of  the  snow-crowned 
hills,  the  glow  of  his  winter  fire,  above  all,  the 
atmosphere  of  mental  calm  and  equilibrium,  these 
are  the  delights  that  prompt  his  song.  Well 
does  he  say  of  this  last  that  it  will  be  heard  "  as 
long  as  the  high  priest  and  silent  vestal  shall 


INTRODUCTION 


ascend  the  steps  of  the  Capitol."  Yes,  and  how 
much  longer? 

This  simplicity,  beloved  of  the  ancients,  has 
not  altogether  lacked  votaries  in  modern  times. 
Prominent  among  these  appears  the  poet  Words- 
worth, who  has  sung  of  his  retired  life  and  rural 
surroundings  like  a  true  lover  of  nature.  Where 
but  in  the  grandeur  and  solitude  of  the  hills 
could  he  have  had  the  vision  which  embodied 
itself  in  the  Ode  to  Immortality,  by  far  his  great- 
est achievement? 

What  is  it  that  consecrates  the  village  of  Con- 
cord in  Massachusetts,  so  that  pilgrims  from  all 
parts  of  this  country  and  of  Europe  are  fain  to 
visit  it?  The  question  is  easy  to  answer.  It  is 
the  memory  of  certain  men  of  superior  mind 
who  made  it  their  home.  All  of  them  lived 
simply,  some  of  them  poorly.  Alcott,  Thoreau, 
Hawthorne,  Emerson.  I  name  them  in  the  as- 
cending scale  of  their  eminence.  The  air  of 
Concord  still  seems  bright  with  their  presence. 
The  stones  which  their  feet  trod  are  holy  ground. 
The  human  world  is  radiant  with  their  thoughts 
and  example. 

Philosophers  and  aesthetes  agree  to  adopt  the 
Greek  motto,  MijSev  &yav,  "not  too  much"  of 
anything,  however  praiseworthy  and  pleasurable 
in  itself.  The  New  Testament  saying  that  one 
cannot  at  the  same  time  serve  God  and  mammon 
is  a  simple  statement  of  a  fact.  Our  intellectual 


life  cannot  proceed  in  two  opposite  directions 
at  the  same  time.  The  diversity  of  objects  which 
multiplies  our  sensations  tends  to  confuse  our 
perceptions.  Drawn  hither  and  thither  by  illu- 
sive attractions,  we  may  easily  lose  sight  of 
the  lodestar  which  should  guide  each  of  us  to  the 
attainment  of  "  our  being's  end  and  way,"  to  wit, 
the  obligation  which  rests  upon  each  of  us  to  do 
his  best  for  his  own  day  and  generation. 

Cowper  pictures  for  us  a  Roman  of  the  Repub- 
lican time  who  "  enjoyed,  spare  feast,  an  apple 
and  an  egg."  Browning  draws  a  graceful  sketch 
of  some  great  Spanish  author,  presumably  Cer- 
vantes, playing  at  cribbage  with  his  maid  ser- 
vant, and  supping  on  a  cheese  paring  and  a 
morsel  of  fruit.  Dante  recalls  with  regret  the 
days  in  which  he  saw  his  noblest  friend  walk 
abroad  in  plainest  attire,  girt  with  a  leathern  belt 
and  horn  buckle.  All  of  the  great  spirits  have 
sought  and  loved  simplicity. 

We  will  not  insist  that  there  is  nothing  to  be 
said  in  defence  of  the  florid  ornamentation  which 
in  some  periods  of  history,  and  among  certain 
races,  has  stood  for  the  ideals  of  beauty  and  of 
majesty.  A  Gothic  cathedral  may  represent  a 
devout  purpose  as  well  or  better  than  a  Greek 

f  L- 

temple.  But  the  attention  of  the  worshipper,  if 
bestowed  upon  details  of  ornamentation,  is  di- 
verted from  objects  more  sublime.  If  you  would 


INTRODUCTION 

contemplate  these  you  must  absent  yourself  in 
thought  from  the  others. 

Why  is  it  that  persons  to  whom  the  entertain- 
ments of  the  great  world  are  familiar  often  ex- 
press intense  delight  in  exchanging  these  for 
rural  retirement,  unceremonious  converse,  and 
simple  fare?  To  many  it  would  appear  that  in 
retiring  from  worldly  splendour  such  persons 
would  relinquish  their  principal  sources  of  enjoy- 
ment. The  truth  is  that  such  a  course  brings 
into  view  sources  of  real,  uplifting  pleasure:  the 
sweet  breath  of  the  fields  and  woods,  surpass- 
ing every  artificial  perfume,  the  beauty  of  earth, 
sea,  and  sky,  eclipsing  the  products  of  the  loom 
and  easel,  above  all,  the  noble  symphonies  of 
contemplative  thought.  To  one  initiated,  these 
can  easily  take  the  place  of  compliment  and 
display. 

Let  us  then  seek  to  obtain  a  clear  vision  of  the 
true  object  of  life,  and  follow  it  with  a  strong 
determination  not  to  fail  from  its  pursuit.  The 
great  primal  duties  bring  many  minor  ones  in 
their  train,  but  between  the  greater  and  the  less 
we  shall  find  here  no  incompatibility.  The  high- 
est enjoyments  shed  their  charm  on  the  whole 
sum  and  substance  of  human  experience.  But 
we  must  be  careful  to  choose  the  highest  duty 
and  the  noblest  satisfaction. 

One  of  the  evils  attendant  upon  wealth  is  that 
those  who  have  it  not  are  apt  to  regard  those 


INTRODUCTION 

who  have  it  either  with  a  slavish  reverence  or 
with  a  rancorous  envy.  Here  we  may  suggest  an 
important  distinction.  We  should  not  show  any 
especial  reverence  to  the  possessor  of  wealth  as 
such,  but  we  may  rightly  reverence  those  who 
use  it  with  a  noble  beneficence.  The  poorest  man 
had  best  not  envy  Mr.  Carnegie  his  immense 
fortune,  but  any  of  us  may  envy  his  power  of 
parting  with  so  much  of  it  as  he  does  for  objects 
in  no  wise  personal  to  himself. 

JULIA   WARD  HOWE. 


THE:  VALUE  OF 
SIMPLICITY 


Often  ornateness 
Goes  with   greatness; 
Oftener  felicity 
Comes    of   simplicity. 


fig 


William  Watson. 
&        &        & 

I  am  convinced,  both  by  faith  and  experience, 
that  to  maintain  one's  self  on  this  earth  is  not 
a  hardship  but  a  pastime,  if  we  will  live  simply 
and  wisely;  as  the  pursuits  of  the  simpler 
nations  are  still  the  sports  of  the  more  artificial. 

H.   D.   Thoreau. 
£?£>£? 

A  servant,  with  this  clause, 

Makes  drudgery  divine: 
Who  sweeps  a  room,  as  for  Thy  laws, 

Makes  that  and  th'  action  fine. 

George  Herbert, 


THE  VALUE  OF 

It  is  far  more  difficult  to  be  simple  than  to  be 
complicated;  far  more  difficult  to  sacrifice  skill 
and  cease  exertion  in  the  proper  place,  than  to 
expend  both  indiscriminately. 

Raskin. 


The  World  is  too  much  with  us;    late  and  soon, 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers; 
Little  we  see  in   Nature  that  is  ours; 
We  have  given  our  hearts  away,  a  sordid  boon! 

This  Sea  that  bares  her  bosom  to  the  moon, 
The  winds  that  will  be  howling  at  all  hours 
And  are  up-gather'd  now  like  sleeping  flowers, 
For  this,  for  everything,  we  are  out  of  tune; 


It  moves  us  not,  —  Great  God!   I'd  rather  be 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn, — 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea; 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn. 

William    Wordsworth. 
*>*>*> 

The  man  whose  character  is  simple  looks 
truth  and  honesty  so  straight  in  the  face  that 
he  has  no  consciousness  of  intrigue  and  cor- 
ruption around  him. 


William  George  Jordan 

2 


SIMPLICITY 


Mine  be  a  cot  beside  the  hill; 
A  beehive's  hum  shall  soothe  my  ear; 
A  willowy  brook  that  turns  a  mill, 
With  many  a  fall  shall  linger  near. 

The  swallow,  oft,  beneath  my  thatch 
Shall  twitter  from  her  clay-built  nest; 
Oft  shall  the  pilgrim  lift  the  latch, 
And  share  my  meal,  a  welcome  guest. 


Around  my  ivied  porch  shall  spring 
Each  fragrant  flower  that  drinks  the  dew; 
And  Lucy,  at  her  wheel,  shall  sing 
In  russet  gown  and  apron  blue. 

The  village   church  among  the  trees, 
Where  first  our  marriage  vows  were  given, 
With  merry  peals  shall  swell  the  breeze 
And  point  with  taper  spire  to  Heaven. 

S.   Rogers. 

*        ~        ~ 

And  he  was  kind,  and  loved  to  sit 

In  the  low  hut  or  garnish'd  cottage, 
And  praise  the  farmer's  homely  wit, 

And  share  the  widow's  homelier  pottage: 
At  his  approach  complaint  grew  mild; 

And  when  his  hand  unbarr'd  the  shutter, 
The  clammy  lips  of  fever  smiled 

The  welcome  which  they  could  not  utter. 

Winthrop  MackivortH  Prat 

3 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Happy  the  man,  whose  wish  and  care 
A  few  paternal  acres  bound, 
Content  to  breathe  his  native  air 
In  his    own   ground. 


Whose  herds  with  milk,  whose  fields  with  bread, 
Whose   flocks   supply   him   with    attire; 
Whose  trees  in  summer  yield  him  shade, 
In  winter,  fire. 


Blest,  who  can  unconcern'dly 
Hours,  days,  and  years,  slide  soft  away 
In  health  of  body,  peace  of  mind, 
Quiet  by  day, 


Sound  sleep  by  night;    study 
Together  mix'd;    sweet  recreation 
And  innocence,  which  most  does 
With  meditation. 


Thus  let  me  live,  unseen,  unknown; 
Thus  unlamented  let  me  die; 
Steal  from  the  world,  and  not  a  stone 
Tell  where  I  lie. 


Alexander  Pope, 


We  are  not  simple  enough  to  be  happy  and  to 
render  others  so.  We  lack  the  singleness  of 
heart  and  the  self-forgetfulness. 

Charles  Wagner. 


SIMPLICITY 


Purity  and  simplicity  are  the  two  wings  with 
which  man  soars  above  the  earth  and  all  tem- 
porary nature.  Simplicity  is  in  the  intention, 
purity  in  the  affection;  simplicity  turns  to  God; 
purity  unites  with  and  enjoys  Him. 

Thomas  u  Ifempis. 

'  w  wttl 

£?         & 

^^  ^| 

The  world  could  not  exist  if  it  were  not  simple. 
This  ground  has  been  tilled  a  thousand  years,  yet 
its  powers  remain  ever  the  same;  a  little  rain, 
a  little  sun,  and  each  spring  it  grows  green 
again. 

Goethe. 

Yes!   let  the  rich  deride,  the  proud  disdain, 
These  simple  blessings  of  the  lowly  train; 
To  me  more  dear,  congenial  to  my  heart, 
One  native  charm,  than  all  the  gloss  of  art. 

Oliver  Goldsmith. 


Why  should  not  our  furniture  be  as  simple  as 
the  Arab's  or  the  Indian's?  When  I  think  of 
the  benefactors  of  the  race,  whom  we  have  apo- 
theosized as  messengers  from  heaven,  bearers 
of  divine  gifts  to  man,  I  do  not  see  in  my  mind 
any  retinue  at  their  heels,  any  car-load  of  fash- 
ionable furniture. 

H.  D.   Thoreau. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Who  drives  the  horses  of  the  sun 

Shall  lord  it  but  a  day; 
Better  the  lowly  deed  were  done, 

And  kept  the  humble  way. 

The  rust  will  find  the  sword  of  fame, 

The  dust  will  hide  the  crown; 
Ay,  none  shall  nail  so  high  his  name 

Time  will  not  tear  it  down. 

The  happiest  heart  that  ever  beat 

Was  in  some  quiet  breast 
That  found  the  common  daylight  sweet, 

And  left  to  Heaven  the  rest. 

John  Vance  Cheney. 


Your  shepherd  is  very  near  to  earth.  He 
grows  up  from  her  lap,  he  never  quite  leaves 
her  bosom;  he  is  her  foster-child.  He  may  hear 
her  heart-beats  and  drink  of  her  tears.  If  she 
smiles  he  knoweth  why.  He  has  listened  and  he 
knoweth.  She  telleth  him  her  secret  thoughts; 
all  the  day  long  he  may  lie  close  in  her  arms. 
No  man  so  proper  for  that  sweet  bed;  no  man 
may  be  so  ready  to  die  and  mingle  with  her. 

Maurice  Hewlett. 


Simplicity  is  a  jewel  rarely  found. 


Ovid. 


SIMPLICITY 

How  some  women  could  simplify  in  their 
clothing  and  gain  in  attractiveness!  ("There 
are  some  upon  whom  rich  clothes  weep,"  says 
Montaigne.)  We  men  are  too  plain  already  in 
the  hideous  ugliness  of  our  garments.  We  have 
forgotten  that  our  male  ancestors  ever  wore  bril- 
liant-coloured clothes  a  couple  of  centuries  ago. 
But  I  imagine  Thoreau  could  give  us  points  as 
to  superfluous  wearing  apparel,  and  I  like  to  think 
of  the  home-made  grass  raincoat  (mino)  of  the 
Japanese.  Think,  too,  of  the  elegant  taste  of  a 
Japanese  house,  entirely  suited  to  their  ways  and 
their  warm  climate;  a  kakemono  and  a  flower- 
vase  in  the  recess  (tokonomo)  of  the  guest-room, 
or  parlour;  a  fire-proof  vault  holding  their  art 
treasures;  rooms  floored  with  soft,  thick,  white 
mats,  but  cluttered  up  with  no  high  tables,  no 
chairs,  no  stoves  or  fires,  no  washing-stands, 
bureaus.  In  all  the  house  no  forks,  spoons,  table- 
cloths, drinking-glasses,  no  flour,  no  pots  or  pans, 
and  above  all  no  bonnets  for  the,  women! 

William  S.   Kennedy. 


Nature  gives  herself  without  reserve  to  all 
who  come  to  inquire  of  her.  But  she  is  a  jealous 
mistress  and  must  be  loved  alone.  If  we  love 
works  of  art  it  is  because  they  come  from  her. 
All  the  rest  is  pedantry  and  emptiness. 

Jean  Francois  Millet. 
7 


THE  VA 

The  man  of  life  upright, 
Whose  guiltless  heart  is  free 

From  all  dishonest  deeds, 
Or  thought  of  vanity; 

he  man  whose  silent  days 
In  harmless  joys  are  spent, 
Whom  hopes  cannot  delude 
Nor  sorrow   discontent: 


That  man  needs  neither  towers 
Nor  armour  for  defence, 

Nor  secret  vaults  to  fly 
From  thunder's  violence: 


He  only  can  behold 
With  unaffrighted  eyes 

The  horrors  of  the  deep 
And  terrors  of  the  skies. 


Thus  scorning  all  the  cares 

That  fate  or  fortune  brings, 
He  makes  the  heaven  his  book, 

His  wisdom  heavenly  things; 

Good  thoughts  his  only  friem 

His  wealth  a  well-spent  ag( 
The  earth  his  sober  inn 

And  quiet  pilgrimage. 

Thomas  Campion. 


SIMPLICITY 

Small  fields  are  mine;   a  small  and  guiltless  rent: 
In  both  I  prize  the  quiet  of  content. 


Mvienus. 


The  farther  we  advance  in  knowledge,  the 
more  simplicity  shall  we  discover  in  those  pri- 
mary rules  that  regulate  all  the  apparently  end- 
less, complicated,  and  multiform  operations  of 
the  Godhead. 

Caleb  Cotton. 

X-S3  ^L 

Now  when  we  come  to  the  question  of  go 
citizenship,  the  first  requisite  is  that  a  man  shall 
do  the  homely,  every-day,  humdrum  duties  well. 
A  man  is  not  a  good  citizen,  I  do  not  care  how 
lofty  his  thoughts  are  about  citizenship  in  the 
abstract,  if  in  the  concrete  his  actions  do  not 
bear  them  out,  and  it  does  not  make  much  dif- 
ference how  high  are  his  aspirations  for  man- 
kind at  large  if  he  does  not  behave  well  in  his 
own  family,  those  aspirations  are  not  going  to 
bear  very  visible  fruit. 

He  has  got  to  be  a  good  breadwinner,  he  has 
got  to  take  care  of  his  wife  and  children,  he  has 
got  to  be  a  neighbour  whom  his  neighbours  can 
trust.  He  has  got  to  act  squarely  in  his  busi- 
ness relations  —  he  has  got  to  do  all  those  every- 
day and  ordinary  things  first  or  he  is  not  a  good 
citizen. 

Theodore  Roosevelt, 

9 


<3 


fft 


THE  VALUE  OF 

She  did  not  seem  to  know  that  she  was  admired 
or  hated  for  being  so  perfect,  but  went  on  calmly 
through  life,  saying  her  prayers,  loving  her 
family,  helping  her  neighbours,  and  doing  good. 

IV.  M.  Thackeray. 


Simplicity  cuts  off  waste  and  intensifies  con- 
centration. It  converts  flickering  torches  into 
search-lights. 

William  George  Jordan. 


I  have  been  out  to-day  in  field  and  wood, 
Listening  to  praises  sweet  and  counsel  good, 
Such  as  a  little  child  had  understood, 

That  in  its  tender  youth, 
Discerns  the  simple  eloquence  of  truth. 


The  modest  blossoms,  crowding  round  my  way, 
Though  they  had  nothing  great  or  grand  to  say, 
Gave  out  their  fragrance  to  the  wind  all  day; 

Because   his   loving   breath, 
With  soft  persistence,  won  them  back  from  death. 

Phcebe  Gary. 


If  you  wish  to  be  like  a  little  child,  study  what  a 
little  child  could  understand,  —  Nature ;  and  do 
what  a  little  child  could  do,  —  love. 

Charles  Ringsley* 


SIMPLICITY 

Art  thou  poor,  yet  hast  thou  golden  slumbers? 

O   sweet  content! 
Art  thou  rich,  yet  is  thy  mind  perplexed? 

O  punishment! 

T.  Dekker. 


The   great  man  is   he  who   does   not  lose  his 
child's  heart. 

Mencias. 


Happy  were  he  could  finish  forth  his  fate 
In  some  unhaunted  desert,  where,  obscure 
From  all  society,  from  love  and  hate 
Of  worldly  folk,  there  should  he  sleep  secure; 


Then  wake  again,  and  yield  God  ever  praise; 
Content  with  hip,  with  haws,  and  brambleberry ; 
In  contemplation  passing  still  his  days, 
And  change  of  holy  thoughts  to  make  him  merry: 


Who,  when  he  dies,  his  tomb  might  be  the  bush 
Where  harmless  robin  resteth  with  the  thrush: 
—  Happy  were  he! 

Robert  Deuereujc,  Earl  of  Essex. 

£?         &        & 

The  spirit  of  simplicity  is  not  an  inherited  gift, 
but  the  result  of  a  laborious  conquest.  Plain  liv- 
ing, like  high  thinking,  is  simplification. 

.. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

and  tastes  and  fashions  change;  people 
fancy  now  this  and  now  that;  but  what  is  unpre- 
tentious and  what  is  true  is  always  beautiful  and 
good,  and  nothing  else  is  so. 

W.  D.  Howells. 


The  pedigree  of  honey 
Does  not  concern  the  bee; 
A  clover,  any  time,  to  him 
Is  aristocracy. 

Emily  Dickinson. 


A  sweet  disorder  in  the  dress 
Kindles  in  clothes  a  wantonness:  — 
A  lawn  about  the  shoulders  thrown 
Into  a  fine  distraction,  — 
An  erring  lace,  which  here  and  there 
Enthrals  the  crimson  stomacher, — 
A  cuff  neglectful,  and  thereby 
Ribbands  to  flow  confusedly, — 
A  winning  wave,  deserving  note, 
In  the  tempestuous  petticoat, — 
A  careless  shoe-string,  in  whose  tie 
I  see  a  wild  civility, — 
Do  more  bewitch  me,  than  when  art 
Is  too  precise  in  every  part. 

Robert  Herrick. 
12 


SIMPLICITY 

How  many  million  stars  must  shine 
Which  only  God  can  see!  — 

Yet  in  the  sky  His  hand  has  hung 
Ten  thousand  stars  for  me! 

How  many  blossoms  bloom  and  fade 
Which  only  God  can  know!  — 

Yet  here's  my  field  of  buttercups, 
And  here  my  daisies  blow. 


How  many  wing-paths  through  the  blue 
Lure  swallows  up  and  down  — 

Yet  here's  my  little  garden  walk, 
And  yon's  the  road  to  town! 

How  many  a  treacherous  voice  has  wooed 

Unhappy  feet  to  roam  — 
Yet  God  has  taught  my  willing  ear 

The   sounds   of   love   and  home! 

Frederic  Lawrence  I£noivles. 

*    '    ' 

O,  when  I  am  safe  in  my  sylvan  home, 
I  tread  on  the  pride  of  Greece  and  Rome; 
And  when  I  am  stretched  beneath  the  pines, 
Where  the  evening  star  so  holy  shines, 
I  laugh  at  the  lore  and  pride  of  man, 
At  the  sophist  schools  and  the  learned  clan; 
For  what  are  they  all,  in  their  high  conceit, 
When  man  in  the  bush  with  God  may  meet? 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Through    the    simplest    exercises    the    student 
passes    to    the   more    serious   etudes;    and   from 
the    latter    to    an    appreciative    interpretation    of 
those    thoughts    expressed    in    the    "inarticulate 
mystic  speech  of  music."    Who  will  say  that  the' 
simplest    exercises    were    less    important    in    the 
grand   economy   of   development   than   the   most 
brilliant  etude?     And  had  the  former  composer 
refused  to  contribute,  how  could  the  latter  have 
been  reached? 

Jeanne  G.  Pennington. 


Native  simplicity  has  an  influence  on  the  mind, 
that  art  or  knowledge  of  the  world  can  never 
boast. 

^        ^        ^    r.  Ingmethorpe. 

There  is  one  show  of  breeding  vulgarity  sel- 
dom assumes,  —  simplicity. 

George  Macdonald. 
&        &        & 

Oh,  for  festal  dainties  spread, 
.Like  my  bowl  of  milk  and  bread; 
Pewter  spoon  and  bowl  of  wood, 


Pewter  spoon  and  bowl  of  wood, 
On  the  door-stone,  gray  and  rude! 


I  was  monarch:    pomp  and  joy 
Waited  on  the  barefoot  boy! 

J.   G.    Whittier. 


Poetry  grows  more  and  more  an  intellectual 
pleasure  for  the  cultured  classes,  less  and  less 
a  possession  of  the  people.  Elizabethan  song 
was  upon  the  lips  of  the  milkmaids  and  market- 
women,  the  common  ear  was  trained  to  grace 
and  melody;  but  how  many  of  the  country  folk 
of  to-day  know  the  involved  numbers  of  our 
poets,  or,  knowing,  could  grasp  them?  Who  is 
writing  the  lays  of  the  people?  One  can  only 
answer  that  few  are  writing  them,  because  the 
spirit  of  poetic  art  has  suffered  a  sea-change  into 
something  rich  and  strange,  and  the  poet  of  to- 
day would  be  fearful  of  his  laurels  should  he 
write  so  artless  a  song  as  "  Gather  ye  rose-buds 
while  ye  may,"  or  "  Come  live  with  me  and  be 
my  love,"  and  yet  these  are  beads  that  Time  tells 
over  on  the  rosary  of  Art. 

Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse. 


How  simple  a  thing  is  true  religion,  and  yet 
from  the  beginning  how  men  have  sought  to 
make  it  hard  and  difficult! 

Malcolm.  J.   McLeod 


The  highest  duties  oft  are  found 

Lying  on  the  lowest  ground, 

In  hidden  and  unnoticed  ways, 

In  household  works,  on  common  days. 

Monselt. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

To  dress,  to  call,  to  dine,  to  break 

No  canon  of  the  social  code, 
The  little  laws  that  lackeys  make, 

The  futile  decalogue  of  Mode, — 
How  many  a  soul  for  these  things  lives, 

With  pious  passion,  grave  intent! 
While  Nature,  careless  handed,  gives 

The  things  that  are  more  excellent. 

William  Watson. 


Live   with   simplicity   if   you   would   live   well; 
bread  with  hunger  makes  a  feast. 

Epicurus. 


The  greatest  truths  are  the  simplest. 

Hose  a  Ballou, 


Simple  may  be  contrasted  with  manifold.  In 
that  sense  it  is  almost  synonymous  with  single, 
fewness,  littleness.  A  simple  life  would  then 
be  a  life  of  very  few,  not  manifold  wants  —  as 
few  as  possible,  and  those  easily  satisfied.  Diog- 
enes would  be  leading  a  simple  life,  and  so  the 
man  who,  according  to  the  anecdote,  threw  away 
his  cup  and  drank  water  from  the  hollow  of  his 
hand. 

Felix  Jtdler. 

16 


SIMPLICITY 

Simplicity  should  be  a  leading  object  in  every 
attempt  to  impress  the  youthful  mind;  the  sim- 
plest is  always  most  grand  and  sublime. 

J.   W.  Barker. 


Thus  fares  the  land  by  luxury  betrayed: 
In  nature's  simplest  charms  at  first  arrayed, 
But  verging  to  decline,  its  splendours  rise; 
Its  vistas  strike,  its  palaces  surprise: 
While,  scourged  by  famine  from  the  smiling  land, 
The  mournful  peasant  leads  his  humble  band, 
And  while  he  sinks,  without  one  arm  to  save, 
The  country  blooms  —  a  garden  and  a  grave. 

Oliver  Goldsmith. 


Simplicity  of  life  is  directness  of  life.  It  is 
life  treated  without  hurry,  apology,  or  panic.  The 
simple  life  is  the  life  that  enjoys  the  closest 
relations  with  reality.  I  plough  the  land.  I  make 
a  chair.  I  lay  bricks.  Am  I  nearer  reality  in  any 
one  art  than  in  any  other?  I  am  near  reality 
when  I  am  honest.  Reality  is  simplicity.  Sim- 
plicity is  life.  The  farm  must  answer  the  ques- 
tion of  reality.  The  workshop  and  the  machine 
have  the  same  question  to  answer.  There  is  only 
one  question  and  only  one  answer,  but  there  may 
be  many  answerers. 

Horace  Traubel. 

17 


THE  VALUE  OF 


If  I  can  stop  one  heart  from  breaking, 

I  shall  not  live  in  vain; 
If  I  can  ease  one  life  the  aching, 

Or  cool  one  pain, 
Or   help   one   fainting   robin 

Unto  his  nest  again, 


shall  not  live  in  vain. 


Emily  Dickinson. 


Nothing   is   more   simple   than   greatness;    in- 
deed, to  be  simple  is  to  be  great. 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


iur  reading  should  be  selected  with  the  utmost 
care.  We  should  take  that  which  will  confirm 
our  desire  for  simplicity  rather  than  the  work 
of  those  authors  who  have  lived  artificial  lives, 
and  have  constantly  impressed  upon  their  books 
their  admiration  for  the  magnificent  and  the 
lin,  the  extravagant,  the  unhealthful. 

John  Brisben  Walker. 


Teach  me  the  secret  of  thy  innocence, 
That  in  simplicity  I  may  grow  wise, 

Asking  from  Art  no  other  recompense 
Than  the  approval  of  her  own  just  eyes. 

Madison  Catvein. 


SIMPLICITY 

SIMPLE  NATURE 

Be  it  not  mine  to  steal  the  cultured  flower 

From  any  garden  of  the  rich  and  great, 
Nor  seek  with  care,  through  many  a  weary  hour, 

Some  novel  form  of  wonder  to  create. 
Enough  for  me  the  leafy  woods  to  rove, 

And  gather  simple  cups  of  morning  dew, 
Or,  in  the  fields  and  meadows  that  I  love, 

Find  beauty  in  their  bells  of  every  hue. 
Thus  round  my  cottage  floats  a  fragrant  air, 

And  though  the  rustic  plot  be  humbly  laid, 
Yet,  like  the  lilies  gladly  growing  there, 

I  have  not  toil'd,  but  take  what  God  has  made. 

My    Lord    Ambition    pass'd,    and    smiled    in 
scorn; 

I  pluck'd  a  rose,  and,  lo !  it  had  no  thorn. 

C.  H.   Romanes. 


Simplicity  is  not  a  talent  like  music;  it  is  not 
a  strength  or  infirmity  of  our  nature  like  self- 
control  or  selfishness;  it  is  not  a  fruit  of  the 
Spirit  like  love;  it  is  an  attitude,  an  attitude  of 

receptiveness. 

.  V<\\_ 


Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 


Courts  are  but  only  superficial  schools 
To  dandle  fools. 

Lord  Bacon. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

When  Socrates  passed  through  shops  of  toys 
and  ornaments,  he  cried  out,  "  How  many  things 
are  here  which  I  do  not  need! "  And  the  same 
expression  may  every  man  make  who  surveys 
the  common  accommodations  of  life. 

Dr.  Samuel  Johnson. 


Simplicity  is  Nature's  first  step,  and  the  last  of 
Art. 

P.  J.  Bailey. 


She  doeth  little  kindnesses 

Which  most  leave  undone  or  despise; 
For  nought  which  sets  one  heart  at  ease, 
And  giveth  happiness  or  peace, 

Is  low-esteemed  in  her  eyes. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


There  is  a  majesty  in  simplicity  which  is  far 
above  the  quaintness  of  wit. 

Alexander  Pope. 
&        &        & 

Simplify  your  life.  Live  as  if  you  were  not 
wealthy.  That  is  the  only  true  rule  for  the 
wealthy. 

Felix  Jtdler. 

20 


SIMPLICITY 

Simplicity  is  not  trying  to  be.  Simplicity  is 
sincerity,  naturalness,  manliness,  self-government, 
the  subordination  of  the  lower  to  the  higher,  of 
the  higher  to  the  highest  —  in  one  word,  sacrifice; 
or  if  a  fuller  phrase  be  asked,  finding  the  divine 
plan  and  fulfilling  it. 

Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 


Fair  Quiet,  have  I  found  thee  here, 
And  Innocence,  thy  sister  dear? 
Mistaken  long,  I  sought  you  then 
In  busy  companies  of  men. 
Your  sacred  plants,  if  here  below, 
Only  among  the  plants  will  grow; 
Society  is  all  but  rude 
To  this  delicious  solitude. 

Jtndrew  Maruell. 


A  simple,  guileless,  childlike  man, 
Content  to  live  where  life  began; 
Strong  only  on  his  native  grounds, 
The  little  world  of  sights  and  sounds 
Whose  girdle  was  the  parish  bounds. 

J.    G.    Whittier. 

&      &      & 

The  circumstances  in  which  men  of  wealth  live 
are  antagonistic  to  the  simple  life. 

Felix  Mdler. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Simplicity  means  the  survival,  —  not  of  the  fit- 
test, but  of  the  best. 

William  George  Jordan. 


The  French  woman,  at  an  afternoon  or  evening 
party,  may  be  as  beautifully  and  stylishly  dressed 
as  you  like,  there  is  always  about  her  dress  a 
certain  little  touch  of  simplicity  that  will  make 
you  think  that  somewhere  in  her  wardrobe  she 
keeps  some  frock  or  gown  still  more  beautiful, 
stylish,  and  expensive. 

Max  O'Rett. 


In  such  a  time  as  this  they  only  will  be  able 
to  help  their  country  in  her  need  who  have 
learned  in  early  life  the  great  lessons  of  simplicity 
and  self-denial,  and  I  don't  hesitate  to  say  that 
the  worst  education  which  teaches  simplicity  and 
self-denial  is  better  than  the  best  which  teaches 
all  else  but  this. 

The  first  aim,  then,  for  your  time  and  your 
generation  should  be,  to  foster,  each  in  your- 
selves, and  each  in  your  school,  a  simple  and  self- 
denying  life  —  your  ideal,  to  be  a  true  and  useful 
one,  must  have  these  two  characteristics  before 
all  others. 

Thomas  Hughe*. 


SIMPLICITY 

THE   MEN    OF    OLD 

I  know  not  that  the  men  of  old 

Were  better  than  men  now, 
Of  heart  more  kind,  of  hand  more  bold, 

Of   more   ingenuous   brow: 
I  heed  not  those  who  pine  for  force 

A  ghost  of  Time  to  raise, 
As  if  they  thus  could  check  the  course 

Of  these  appointed  days. 


To  them  was  life  a  simple  art 

Of  duties  to  be  done, 
A  game  where  each  man  took  his  part, 

A  race  where  all  must  run; 
A  battle  whose  great  scheme  and  scope 

They  little  cared  to  know, 
Content,  as  men  at  arms,  to  cope 

Each  with  his  fronting  foe. 


Man  now  his  Virtue's  diadem 

Puts  on  and  proudly  wears, 
Great  thoughts,  great  feelings,  came  to  them, 

Like  instincts,  unawares: 
Blending  their  souls'  sublimest  needs 

With  tasks  of  every  day, 
They  went  about  their  gravest  deeds, 

As  noble  boys  at  play. 

Richard  Monckton  Milne*  (Lord.  Houghton  . 
23 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Let  such  as  love  the  eagle's  scream 
Divide  with  him  his  home  of  ice: 
For  me  shall  gentler  notes  suffice, — 
The  valley  song  of  bird  and  stream. 

J.  G.   Whittier. 


Of  manners  gentle,  of  affections  mild; 
In  wit  a  man,  simplicity  a  child. 

Alexander  Pope 


Touch  us  gently,  Time! 

Let  us  glide  adown  thy  stream 
Gently  —  as    we    sometimes    glide 

Through  a  quiet  dream. 
Humble  voyagers  are  we, 
Husband,   wife,  and  children  three  — 
(One  is  lost  —  an  angel  fled 
To  the  azure  overhead!) 

Touch  us  gently,  Time! 

We've  not  proud  nor  soaring  wings, 
Our  ambition,  our  content, 

Lies  in  simple  things. 
Humble    voyagers    are   we, 
O'er  life's  dim,  unsounded  sea, 
Seeking   only   some    calm   clime; 
Touch  us  gently,  gentle  Time. 


Bryan  Waller  Procter. 


24 


SIMPLICITY 


And  here  let  me  say,  that  expensive  habits 
among  the  more  prosperous  labourers  often 
interfere  with  the  mental  culture  of  themselves 
and  their  families.  How  many  among  them 
sacrifice  improvement  to  appetite!  How  many 
sacrifice  it  to  the  love  of  show,  to  the  desire  of 
outstripping  others,  and  to  habits  of  expense 
which  grow  out  of  this  insatiable  passion!  In  a 
country  so  thriving  and  luxurious  as  ours,  the 
labourer  is  in  danger  of  contracting  artificial 
wants  and  diseased  tastes;  and  to  gratify  these, 
he  gives  himself  wholly  to  accumulation,  and 
sells  his  mind  for  gain.  Our  unparalleled  pros- 
perity has  not  been  an  unmixed  good.  It  has 
inflamed  cupidity,  has  diseased  the  imagination 
with  dreams  of  boundless  success,  and  plunged 
a  vast  multitude  into  excessive  toils,  feverish 
competitions,  and  exhausting  cares.  A  labourer 
having  secured  a  neat  home  and  a  wholesome 
table,  should  ask  nothing  more  for  the  senses; 
but  should  consecrate  his  leisure,  and  what  may 
be  spared  of  his  earnings,  to  the  culture  of  himself 
and  his  family,  to  the  best  books,  to  the  best 
teaching,  to  pleasant  and  profitable  intercourse, 
to  sympathy  and  the  offices  of  humanity,  and  to 
the  enjoyment  of  the  beautiful  in  nature  and  art. 

William  Ettery  Chanr.ing. 

All  great  actions  have  been  simple. 

Abraham  Lincoln, 

25 


THE  VALUE  OF 


It  is  not  in  the  spirit  of  something  far  away 
in  the  clouds  or  under  the  moon,  something 
ethereal,  visionary,  and  antimundane,  that  Angelo, 
Dante,  and  Shakespeare  work,  but  in  the  spirit 
of  the  common  Nature  and  the  homeliest  facts: 
through  these,"  and  not  away  from  them,  the 
path  of  the  creator  lies. 

John  Burroughs. 
&       &       & 

"^          .^f^  'm 

With  a  porch  at  my  door,  both  for  shelter  and 

shade,  too, 

As  the  sunshine  or  rain  may  prevail; 
And  a  small  spot  of  ground  for  the  use  of  the 

spade,  too, 

With  a  barn  for  the  use  of  the  flail: 
A  cow  for  my  dairy,  a  dog  for  my  game, 

And  a  purse  when  a  friend  wants  to  borrow; 
I'll  envy  no  nabob  his  riches  or  fame, 
Nor  what  honours  await  him  to-morrow. 

Collins. 


The  innocence  that  is  so  wise; 
The  trust  that  dreams  of  no  disguise; 
The   simple  faith  in  mysteries, — 


These  still  shall  in  the  world  survive 
So  long  as  God  doth  children  give, 
To  keep  the  child  in  us  alive. 

Samuel  Longfellow. 


r«r 


SIMPLICITY 


In  purple  and  fine  linen 
My  country  farmhouse  shines. 

The  purple  on  the  lilacs  — 
The  linen  on  the  lines. 

Frederic  Lawrence  f^nowles. 


Albert  Du'rer,  the  famous  painter,  used  to  say 
he  had  no  pleasure  in  pictures  that  were  painted 
with  many  colours,  but  in  those  which  were 
painted  with  a  choice  simplicity.  So  it  is  with 
me  as  to  sermons. 

Martin  Luther. 

We  need  love's  tender  lessons  taught 

As  only  weakness  can: 
God  hath  His  small  interpreters; 

The  child  must  teach  the  man. 

J.    G.    Whit  tier. 


1l 


What  doth  the  poor  man's  son  inherit? 
Wishes  o'erjoyed  with  humble  things, 

A  rank  adjudged  by  toil-won  merit, 

Content   that  from  employment  springs, 
A  heart  that  in  his  labour  sings; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

A  king  might  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Let  it  not  be  in  any  man's  power  to  say  truly 
of  thee  that  thou  art  not  simple,  or  that  thou  art 
not  good;  but  let  him  be  a  liar  whoever  shall 
think  anything  of  this  kind  about  thee;  and  this 
is  altogether  in  thy  power.  For  who  is  he  that 
shall  hinder  thee  from  being  good  and  simple? 

Marcus  Jturelius. 
&        &        & 

The  greatest  truths  are  the  simplest;  and  so 
are  the  greatest  men. 

Hare. 


Her  occupation  was  only  to  live  her  daily  life; 
her  accomplishments  were  the  knowledge  of  a 
few  songs;  her  intellectual  gifts  were  summed 
up  in  her  simple  innocence. 

Victor  Hugo. 


The  trivial  round,  the  common  task, 
Will  furnish  all  we  need  to  ask; 
Room  to  deny  ourselves;  a  road 
To  bring  us,  daily,  nearer  God. 

John  treble. 


Calm  soul  of  all  things!   make  it  mine 
To  feel  amid  the  cities'  jar 
That  there  abides  a  peace  of  thine 
Man  did  not  make  and  cannot  mar. 

Matthew  Mrnold. 
28 


SIMPLICITY 


Whenever  vanity  and  gaiety,  a  love  of  pomp 
and  dress,  furniture,  equipage,  buildings,  great 
company,  expensive  diversions,  and  elegant  en- 
tertainments get  the  better  of  the  principles  and 
judgments  of  men  and  women,  there  is  no  know- 
ing where  they  will  stop,  nor  into  what  evils, 
natural,  moral,  or  political,  they  will  lead  us. 

John  Mdams. 

&       &       & 

Quiet,  Lord,  my  froward  heart: 
Make  me  teachable  and  mild, 

Upright,  simple,  free  from  art,  — 
Make  me  as  a  weaned  child: 

From  distrust  and  envy  free, 
Pleased  with  all  that  pleases  Thee. 

What  Thou  shalt  to-day  provide, 

Let  me  as  a  child  receive; 
What  to-morrow  may  betide, 

Calmly  to  Thy  wisdom  leave; 
'Tis  enough  that  Thou  wilt  care : 

Why  should  I  the  burden  bear? 

As  a  little  child  relies 

On  a  care  beyond   his  own, 
Knows  he's  neither  strong  nor  wise, 

Fears  to  stir  a  step  alone; 
Let  me  thus  with  Thee  abide, 

As  my  Father,  Guard,  and  Guide. 

John  ffewton. 
29 


THE  VALUE  OF 


The  most  agreeable  of  all  companions  is  a 
simple,  frank  man,  without  any  high  pretensions 
to  an  oppressive  greatness  —  one  who  loves  life, 
and  understands  the  use  of  it;  obliging  alike  at 
all  hours;  above  all,  of  a  golden  temper,  and 
steadfast  as  an  anchor;  for  such  an  one,  we 
gladly  exchange  the  greatest  genius,  th*  most 
brilliant  wit,  the  profoundest  thinker,  and  the 
brightest  scholar. 

Leasing, 


Let  not  Ambition  mock  their  useful  toil, 
Their  homely  joys,  and  destiny  obscure; 
Nor  Grandeur  hear  with  a  disdainful  smile 
The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  Poor. 

Thomas  Gray. 


The  more  I  see  of  the  world,  the  more  I  am 
satisfied  that  simplicity  is  inseparably  the  com- 
panion of  true  greatness;  I  never  yet  knew  a 
truly  great  man,  a  man  who  overtopped  his 
fellow  man,  who  did  not  possess  a  certain  playful, 
almost  infantile,  simplicity;  true  greatness  never 
struts  on  the  stilts,  or  plays  the  king  on  the 
stage;  conscious  of  its  elevation,  and  knowledge 
in  what  elevation  consists,  it  is  happy  to  act  its 
part  as  other  men  in  the  common  amusement 
and  business  of  mankind;  it  is  not  afraid  of  being 

undervalued. 

/       V\\lilf^x-  ^V   \\     %UVW_ 

Gale. 


SIMPLICITY 


It  matters  little  where  I  was  born, 
Whether  my  parents  were  rich  or  poor, 

Whether  they  shrank  from  the  cold  world's  scorn 
Or  walked  in  the  pride  of  wealth  secure; 

But  whether  I  live  an  honest  man, 
And  hold  my  integrity  firm  in  my  clutch, 

I  tell  you,  brother,  plain  as  I  am, 
t  matters  much. 

From  the  Swedish. 


Be  simple,  be  unaffected,  be  honest  in  your 
speaking  and  writing:  never  use  a  long  word 
where  a  short  one  will  do. 

Mlford. 
&       &        & 

We  have  grown  up  surrounded  by  a  thousand 
unwise,  false,  or  unnecessary  customs.  Because 
it  is  the  "  custom,"  we  think  we  must  imitate.  It 
is  difficult  for  the  mind  to  separate  things  as 
they  should  be  from  things  as  they  are.  "  That  is 
the  way  of  the  neighbourhood;  therefore  it  must 
be  our  way."  To  separate  ourselves  from  the 
false  and  unreal  requires  clear  thinking.  It  is 
only  by  a  wrench  that  we  break  away.  Yet  there 
cannot  be  simplicity  of  life  without  this  separa- 
tion mentally  and  actually;  not  what  is  the  cus- 
tom, but  what  is  logical,  what  is  in  good  taste, 
should  be  our  constant  effort  to  determine. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Our  social  joys  are  more  than  fame, 
Life  withers  in  the  public  look. 
Why  mount  the  pillory  of  a  book, 
Or  barter  comfort  for  a  name? 

J.   G.    Whittier. 
&        &        & 

Simplicity  means  making  for  the  important 
things,  and  not  allowing  the  unimportant,  the 
superfluous,  to  get  in  the  way. 

Felix  Jtdler. 
&        &        & 

No  character  can  be  simple  unless  it  is  based 
on  truth,  -unless  it  is  lived  in  harmony  with 
one's  own  conscience  and  ideals. 

William  George  Jordan. 


Still  to  be  neat,  still  to  be  drest, 

As  you  were  going  to  a  feast; 

Still  to  be  powdered,  still  perfumed,— 

Lady,  it  is  to  be  presumed, 

Though  art's  hid  causes  are  not  found, 

All  is  not  sweet,  all  is  not  sound. 

Give  me  a  look,  give  me  a  face, 
That  makes  simplicity  a  grace; 
Robes  loosely  flowing,  hair  as  free,— 
Such  sweet  neglect  more  taketh  me 
Than  all  the  adulteries  of  art; 
They  strike  mine  eyes,  but  not  my  heart. 

Ben  Jonson, 


SIMPLICITY 

To  live  content  with  small  means;  to  seek 
elegance  rather  than  luxury,  and  refinement 
rather  than  fashion;  to  be  worthy,  not  respect- 
able; and  wealthy,  not  rich;  to  study  hard,  think 
quietly,  talk  gently,  act  frankly;  to  listen  to 
stars  and  birds,  to  babes  and  sages,  with  open 
heart;  to  bear  all  cheerfully,  do  all  bravely,  await 
occasions,  hurry  never  —  in  a  word,  to  let  the 
spiritual,  unbidden  and  unconscious,  grow  up 
through  the  common;  this  is  to  be  my  symphony. 

William  Henry  Channing. 


There  is  no  rhyme  that  is  half  so  sweet 

As  the  song  of  the  wind  in  the  rippling  wheat; 

There  is  no  metre  that's  half  so  fine 

As  the  lilt  of  the  brook  under  rock  and  vine; 

And  the  loveliest  lyric  I  ever  heard 

Was  the  wildwood  strain  of  a  forest  bird. 

Madison  Caivein. 


Simple  hearts  put  all  the  history  and  customs 
of  this  world  behind  them,  and  play  their  own 
play  in  innocent  defiance  of  the  blue-laws  of 
the  world;  and  such  would  appear,  could  we 
see  the  human  race  assembled  in  vision,  like  little 
children  frolicking  together,  though  to  the  eyes 
of  mankind  at  large  they  wear  a  stately  and 
solemn  garb  of  works  and  influences. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


You  want  to  get  simple,  clear,  universal  relig- 
ion? You  cannot  get  it  by  any  patchwork,  say- 
ing to  yourself,  "  Now  I  am  going  to  study  a 
little  Buddhism,  then  a  little  Calvinism,  now  a 
little  Liberalism.  There  is  truth  in  all  these 
things;  by  putting  them  all  together  I  can  find 
a  broader  religion."  Confusion  worse  confounded 
can  be  the  only  result  of  that.  But  suppose  you 
do  not  try  to  do  that  at  all.  Suppose  you  ask 
yourself  simply  this:  "What,  to  me,  is  the  best 
and  highest  conception  of  religion?  What  is 
the  best  gift  a  man  can  have?"  When  you  are 
looking  only  for  the  best  you  pass  lightly  over 
wearisome  controversies,  but  you  come  at  last 
to  great  utterances  that  arrest  your  attention. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  words  of  the  old  prophet: 
"What  doth  God  require  of  thee  but  to  do 
justly  and  to  love  mercy  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God?"  At  this  your  heart  kindles. 
You  say,  "I  can  believe  that;  that  is  true  re- 
ligion." 

Samuel  M.  Crothers. 

&         £>         & 

I  come  not,  friends,  to  steal  away  your  hearts: 
I  am  no  orator,  as  Brutus  is; 
But,  as  you  know  me  all,  a  plain  blunt  man, 
For  I  have  neither  wit,  nor  word,  nor  worth, 
Action,  nor  utterance,  nor  the  power  of  speech, 
To  stir  men's  blood:   I  only  speak  right  on. 


SIMPLICITY 


Simplicity  is  the  great  friend  to  nature,  and 
if  I  would  be  proud  of  anything  in  this  silly 
world,  it  should  be  of  this  honest  alliance. 

Stern*. 


To  give  pleasure  to  a  single  heart  by  a  single 
kind  act  is  better  than  a  thousand  head-bowings 
in  prayer. 

Saadi. 

What  though  no  rule  of  courtly  grace 

To  measured  mood  had  train'd  her  pace, — 

A  foot  more  light,  a  step  more  true, 

Ne'er  from   the   heath-flower   dash'd   the   dew; 

E'en  the  slight  harebell  raised  its  head, 

Elastic  from  her  airy  tread; 

What  though  upon  her  speech  there  hung 

The  accent  of  the   mountain   tongue, 

Those  silver   sounds,  so   soft,  so   clear, 

The  list'ner  held  his  breath  to  hear. 

Sir  Walter  Scott. 


But  when  they  stripped  him  of  his  ornaments 
It  was  the  baubles  lost  their  grace,  not  he. 


It  seemed  the  soul  within  him  made  his  limbs 
And  made  them  grand.     The  baubles  were  well 

gone, 
He  stood  the  more  a  king,  when  bared  to  man. 

Eliot. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


We  are  dazzled  with  the  splendour  of  titles, 
the  ostentation  of  learning,  the  noise  of  victories; 
they,  on  the  contrary,  see  the  philosopher  in  the 
cottage,  who  possesses  his  soul  in  patience  and 
thankfulness,  under  the  pressures  of  what  little 
minds  call  poverty  and  distress.  They  do  not 
look  for  great  men  at  the  head  of  armies,  or 
among  the  pomps  of  a  court,  but  often  find  them 
out  in  shades  and  solitudes,  in  the  private  walks 
and  by-paths  of  life.  The  evening's  walk  of  a 
wise  man  is  more  illustrious  in  their  sight  than 
the  march  of  a  general  at  the  head  of  a  hundred 
thousand  men.  A  contemplation  on  God's  works; 
a  voluntary  act  of  justice  to  our  own  detriment; 
a  generous  concern  for  the  good  of  mankind; 
tears  that  are  shed  in  silence  for  the  misery  of 
ethers;  a  private  desire  or  resentment  broken  and 
subdued;  in  short,  an  unfeigned  exercise  of 
humility,  or  any  other  virtue  —  are  such  actions 
as  are  glorious  in  their  sight,  and  denominate 
men  great  and  reputable.  The  most  famous 
among  us  are  often  looked  upon  with  pity,  with 
contempt,  or  with  indignation;  while  those  who 
are  most  obscure  among  their  own  species  are 
regarded  with  love,  with  approbation,  and  esteem. 

The  Spectator. 
&        &        & 

Simplicity  of  character  is  the  natural  result  of 
profound  thought. 

Haxlitt. 

36 


SIMPLICITY 


After  all,  of  what  use  is  this  pride  of  appear- 
ance, for  which  so  much  is  risked,  so  much  is 
suffered?  It  cannot  promote  health  or  ease 
pain;  it  makes  no  increase  of  merit  in  the  person; 
it  creates  envy;  it  hastens  misfortune. 

"What   is  a  butterfly?     At  best, 
He's  but  a  caterpillar  drest, 
The  gaudy  fop's  his  picture  just," 


as  Poor  Richard  says. 


Benjamin  Franklin. 


There  can  be,  I  fear,  no  question  that  the  out- 
side world  has  been  reflected  in  our  schools.  I 
hear  on  all  sides  stories  of  increased  expendi- 
ture of  all  kinds.  There  must  be  fancy  dresses 
for  all  games,  and  boys  are  made  to  feel  uncom- 
fortable who  do  not  conform  to  the  fashion,  or 
who  practise  such  'useful  and  often  necessary 
economies  as  wearing  old  clothes  or  travelling 
third-class.  You  know  whether  such  things  are 
true  here.  If  they  are,  they  are  sapping  true 
manliness,  and  tainting  our  national  life  at  its 
roots. 

Thomas  Hughes. 

In  character,  in  manners,  in  style,  in  all  things, 
the  supreme  excellence  is  simplicity. 

Longfellow. 

37 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Give  to  me  the  life  I  love, 

Let  the  lave  go  by  me, 
Give  the  jolly  heaven  above 

And  the  by-way  nigh  me. 
Bed  in  the  bush  with  stars  to  see, 

Bread  I  dip  in  the  river  — 
There's  the  life  for  a  man  like  me, 

There's  the  life  for  ever. 

R.  L.  Stevenson. 


In  our  reading  it  would  be  an  excellent  thing 
if  we  could  establish  the  rule  of  neglecting  the 
unimportant,  the  superfluous,  and  devoting  our 
time  and  attention  to  the  really  important  things. 
The  present  condition  in  literature  is  like  that 
which  is  said  to  have  prevailed  on  earth  imme- 
diately after  Noah  entered  the  ark.  A  deluge  has 
set  in.  It  rains  and  rains  books  and  reviews  and 
magazines  and  pamphlets;  and  then  there  are 
the  newspapers.  The  flood  rises  higher  and 
higher.  It  comes  into  our  houses,  empties  itself 
on  our  book-shelves,  and  loads  our  tables.  We 
are  up  to  our  necks  in  it,  and  in  alarm  we  cry 
that  we  shall  drown! 

Felix  Jtdler. 


That  best  portion  of  a  good  man's  life, 

is  little,  nameless,  unremembered  acts 
Of  kindness  and  of  love. 

William  Wordsworth. 


SIMPLICITY 

Compar'd  with  this,  how  poor  Religion's  pride, 
In  all  the  pomp  of  method,  and  of  art; 

When   men  display  to   congregations  wide 
Devotion's  ev'ry  grace,  except  the  heart, 
The  Power,  incensed,  the  pageant  will  desert, 

The  pompous  strain,  the  sacerdotal  stole; 
But,  haply,  in  some  cottage  far  apart, 

May  hear,  well-pleas'd,  the  language  of  the  soul, 

And  in  His  Book  of  Life  the  inmates  poor  enroll. 

Robert  Burns. 
£?£>£? 

In  the  effort  to  appreciate  various  forms  of 
greatness,  let  us  not  underestimate  the  value  of 
a  simply  good  life.  Just  to  be  good;  to  keep 
life  pure  from  degrading  elements,  to  make  it 
constantly  helpful  in  little  ways  to  those  who 
are  touched  by  it,  to  keep  one's  spirit  always 
sweet,  and  avoid  all  manner  of  petty  anger  and 
irritability  —  that  is  an  ideal  as  noble  as  it  is 
difficult. 

Edward.  Howard  Griggs. 


FOR    A'   THAT    AND    A'   THAT 

Is  there  for  honest  poverty 
Wha  hings  his  head,  an'  a'  that? 

The   coward  slave,  we  pass  him  by; 
We  dare  be  poor  for  a'  that. 

For  a'  that  an'  a'  that, 
Our  toils  obscure,  an'  a'  that; 


THE  VALUE  OF 


The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp, — 
The  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that. 


What  though  on  hamely  fare  we  dine, 

Wear  hoddin  gray,  an'  a'  that; 
Gie  fools  their  silks,  and  knaves  their  wine, 

A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that. 
For  a'  that  an'  a'  that, 

Their  tinsel  show,  an'  a'  that; 
The  honest  man,  though  e'er  sae  poor, 

Is  king  o'  men  for  a'  that. 


Ye  see  yon  birkie  ca'd  a  lord, 

Wha  struts,  an'  stares,  an'  a'  that, — 
Though  hundreds  worship  at  his  word, 

He's  but  a  coof  for  a'  that; 
For  a'  that,  an'  a'  that, 

His  riband,  star,  an'  a'  that; 
The  man  of  independent  mind, 

He  looks  an'  laughs  at  a'  that. 


Then  let  us  pray  that  come  it  may, — 

As  come  it  will  for  a'  that, — 
That  sense  and  worth,  o'er  a'  the  earth, 

May  bear  the  gree,  an'  a'  that. 
For  a'  that,  an'  a'  that, 

It's  comin*  yet,  for  a'  that, — 
When  man  to  man,  the  warld  o'er, 

Shall  brithers  be  for  a'  that! 

Robert  Burn*. 

40 


SIMPLICITY 

Some  genuine  exhibitions  in  living  simply  are 
being  given  by  the  Japanese.  It  is  not  a  fad 
with  them.  It  is  conviction  and  reality.  We  may 
argue  until  the  crack  of  doom  about  the  relative 
height  reached  by  civilization  in  Asia  and  Amer- 
ica. The  question  is  too  general  for  absolute 
decision.  But  on  some  specific  points  no  doubt 
exists,  and  plain  living  as  an  adjunct  to  high 
acting  is  one  of  them.  The  record  of  the  Japan- 
ese hospitals  is  the  most  brilliant  of  all  their 
accomplishments  in  this  war.1  They  may  or  may 
not  surpass  Europeans  in  various  military  attri- 
butes. They  are,  however,  as  shown  by  their 
official  reports,  just  seventy  times  as  proficient 
as  Americans  in  fighting  disease,  and  the  Boer 
War  put  the  English  in  this  respect  about  where 
the  Spanish  War  put  us.  Out  of  twenty-five  thou- 
sand cases  of  serious  illness  the  Japanese  lose 
forty.  From  typhoid  they  lose,  between  May  6th 
and  December  ist,  three  out  of  133;  from  dysen- 
tery, four  out  of  342.  It  is  fair  to  assume  that 
their  ability  in  preventing  disease  is  at  least  as 
great,  relatively,  as  in  curing  it.  When  Napo- 
leon said  that  in  war  sickness  was  a  more  dan- 
gerous foe  than  bullets,  it  was  true,  and  it 
remained  true  until  the  Japanese  appeared  upon 
the  scene.  Can  we  imitate  them?  It  will  be  no 
easy  matter,  for  their  medical  success  depends  in 
large  part  upon  the  willingness  of  soldiers  to  live 
1  The  Russo-Japanese  War. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


hygienically.  They  do  not  eat  for  pleasure. 
They  do  not  drink  for  fun.  They  are  the  only 
inspiring  examples  of  what  the  simple  life  can 

Jtnon. 

If  we  look  into  the  manners  of  the  most  remote 
ages  of  the  world,  we  discover  human  nature  in 
her  simplicity:  and  the  more  we  come  down- 
ward toward  our  own  times,  may  observe  her 
hiding  herself  in  artifices  and  refinements,  pol- 
ished insensibly  out  of  her  original  plainness, 
and  at  length  entirely  lost  under  form  and 
ceremony,  and  (what  we  call)  good  breeding. 
Read  the  accounts  of  men  and  women  as  they 
are  given  us  by  the  most  ancient  writers,  both 
sacred  and  profane,  and  you  would  think  you  were 
reading  the  history  of  another  species. 

Joseph  Jtddison. 


There  is  a  great  mistake  made  on  the  subject 
of  simplicity;  there  is  one  simplicity  of  circum- 
stance, another  simplicity  of  heart;  there  is  many 
a  man  who  sits  down  to  a  meal  of  bread  and 
milk  on  a  wooden  table,  whose  heart  is  as  proud 
as  the  proudest  whose  birth  is  royal;  there  is 
many  a  one  whose  voice  is  heard  in  the  public 
meeting  loudly  descanting  on  regal  tyranny  and 
aristocratic  insolence,  who,  in  his  own  narrow  cir- 
cle, is  as  much  a  tyrant  as  any  oppressor. 

F.    IV.  Robertson. 

42 


tr\ 


SIMPLICITY 


Perhaps  it  is  in  the  matter  of  amusements  that 
one  seeking  to  make  a  departure  in  the  direction 
of  "  the  simple  life  "  has  the  best  chance  of  exer- 
cising judgment.  As  each  one  must  do  his  share 
of  the  world's  work,  so  in  order  to  restore  to  the 
body  its  capacity  for  labour  there  must  be  rest 
through  sleep  and  rest  through  entertainment. 
As  we  must  have  exercise  in  the  open  air  in 
order  to  be  healthy,  there  is  opportunity  to  select 
those  things  which  are  natural  rather  than  the 
amusements  which  are  artificial. 

John  Brisben  Walker. 


Most  of  American  literature  that  we  prize  is 
in  praise  of  the  simple  life,  from  the  writings  of 
Benjamin  Franklin  to  those  of  John  Burroughs 
who  both  use  simple  English;  and  all  our  preach 
ers,  in  and  out  of  the  pulpit,  have  made  their 
best  sermons  about  it  —  to  name  two  laymen  for 
examples,  Charles  William  Eliot  and  Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

To  consider  this  a  new  gospel  is  the  most 
ominous  sign  that  our  minds  have  been  uphol- 
stered with  cheap  fiction,  commercial  living,  and 
department-store  decorations.  It  is  as  true  as 
it  is  commonplace,  by  the  way,  that  the  simple 
life  was  perhaps  never  learned  from  sermons,  but 
always  in  a  home. 

Walter  H.  Page. 


& 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Fair  is  the  soul,  rare  is  the  soul 
Who  has  kept,  after  youth  is  past, 

All  the  art  of  the  child,  all  the  heart  of  the  child, 
Holding  his  faith  at  last! 

Gelett  Burgess. 


Simplicity  is  a  state  of  mind.  It  dwells  in  the 
main  intention  of  our  lives.  A  man  is  simple 
when  his  chief  care  is  the  wish  to  be  what  he 
ought  to  be,  that  is,  honestly  and  naturally 
human.  And  this  is  neither  so  easy  nor  so  im- 
possible as  one  might  think.  At  bottom,  it  con- 
sists in  putting  our  acts  and  aspirations  in  accord- 
ance with  the  law  of  our  being,  and  consequently 
with  the  Eternal  Intention  which  willed  that  we 
should  be  at  all. 

Charles  Wagner. 


For  aught  I  see,  they  are  as  sick  that  surfeit 
with  too  much  as  they  that  starve  with  nothing. 

Shakespeare. 

Wiser  it  were  to  welcome  and  make  ours 

Whate'er  of  good,  though  small,  the  Present 
brings,  — 

Kind  greetings,  sunshine,  song  of  birds,  and  flow- 
ers, 

With  a  child's  pure  delight  in  little  things. 

R.  C.  Trench. 

44 


SIMPLICITY 


I  wish  her   beauty 

That  owes  not  all  its  duty 

To  gaudy  tire,  or  glist'ring  shoe 


Something  more  than 
Taffata  or  tissue  can, 
Or  rampant  feather,  or  rich  fan.  * 

A  face  that's  best 

By  its  own  beauty  drest, 

And  can  alone  command  the  rest: 

A  face  made  up 

Out  of  no  other  shop 

Than  what  Nature's  white  hand  sets  ope. 

Richard  Crashatv. 

"A  Commonplace  life,"  we  say,  and  we  sigh; 

But  why  should  we  sigh  as  we  say? 
The  commonplace  sun  in  the  commonplace  sky 

Makes  up  the  commonplace  day. 
The  moon  and  the  stars  are  commonplace  things, 
And  the   flower  that   blooms  and  the  bird   that 

sings; 

But  dark  were  the  world,  and  sad  our  lot 
If  the  flowers  failed,  and  the  sun  shone  not; 
And  God,  who  studies  each  separate  soul 
Out  of  commonplace  lives  makes  His  beautiful 
whole. 

Susan  Coolidge. 

45 


lit  ! 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Only  through  an  ideal  that  is  pure  and  simple 
can  we  live  in  this  world  in  such  a  way  as  to 
discover  its  beauty  and  appropriate  its  truth. 

Samuel  M.   Crothers. 


There  is  a  holy  simplicity! 


Simplicity  of  style  and  directness  of  language, 
when  united  in  the  narrative  form,  present  the 
strongest  attractions  to  the  expanding  mind. 


^ 


Putnam. 


Let  us  consider  —  of  what  is  life  made  up?  Of 
splendid  bursts  of  genius  and  heroism,  or  of 
patient,  noiseless,  progressive  efforts  of  daily 
wisdom  and  usefulness?  Whence  flow  the  order, 
tranquillity,  and  happiness  of  society?  By  whom 
are  the  great  designs  of  Providence  carried  into 
effect?  The  grand  sum  total  of  the  world's  busi- 
ness is  brought  to  pass,  not  by  the  irregular  im- 
pulses of  a  few  energetic  spirits,  but  by  the 
joint  harmonious  action  of  myriads  of  humble, 
faithful  workers,  who  pursue  the  task  set  before 
them,  and  have  no  higher  ambition  than  to  per- 
form it  well. 


O   Nature!     I   do   not   aspire 
To  be  the  highest  in  thy  quire, — 
To  be  a  meteor  in  the  sky, 
Or  comet  that  may  range  on  high; 
Only  a  zephyr  that  may  blow 
Among  the  reeds  by  the  river  low; 
Give  me  thy  most  privy  place 
Where  to   run  my  airy  race. 


In  some  withdrawn,  unpublic  mead 

Let  me  sigh  upon  a  reed, 

Or  in  the  woods,  with  leafy  din, 

Whisper  the  still  evening  in: 

Some  still  work  give  me  to  do, — 

Only  —  be  it  near  to  you! 

For  I'd  rather  be  thy  child 

And  pupil,  in  the  forest  wild, 

Than  be  the  king  of  men  elsewhere, 

And  most  sovereign  slave  of  care. 

H.   2>.    Thoreau. 


How  welcome  to  our  ears,  long  pained 

By  strife  of  sect  and  party  noise, 
The  brook-like  murmur  of  his  song 

Of  nature's  simple  joys! 

J.  G.   Whittier.-   "Wordsworth." 


Simplicity  is  the  virtue  of  nature. 

//  m-\       0T\   '      "^\ 


Mrs.  Opie. 


47 


THE  VALUE  OF 

People  are  seeking  salvation  from  an  unquiet 
spirit.  They  are  perplexed  and  they  long  for 
peace.  They  are  overburdened  and  they  desire 
to  be  saved  from  weakness  and  faint-heartedness. 
There  is  a  pathetic  desire  for  whatever  ministers 
to  peace  of  mind.  It  is  because  people  find  the 
world  too  great  and  many-sided  that  they  yield 
themselves  so  easily  to  any  one  who  seems  to 
reduce  everything  to  simplicity.  Wearied  with 
its  own  speculations,  the  tired  soul  cries:  "Tell 
me  the  old,  old  story.  Tell  it  to  me  as  you  would 
tell  it  to  a  little  child,  so  that  I  may  repeat  the 
very  words,  and  in  that  find  comfort  and  help." 

Samuel  M,  Crothers, 


When  I  heard  the  learn'd  astronomer, 

When   the   proofs,   the   figures,   were   ranged   in 

columns  before  me, 
When  I  was  shown  the  charts  and  diagrams,  to 

add,   divide,   and  measure   them, 
When  I  sitting  heard  the  astronomer  where  he 

lectured  with  much  applause  in  the  lecture- 

room, 

How  soon  unaccountable  I  became  tired  and  sick, 
Till  rising  and  gliding  out  I  wander'd  off  by  my- 

self, 
In  the  mystical,  moist  night-air,  and  from  time  to 

time 
Looked  up  in  perfect  silence  at  the  stars. 

Watt  Whitman. 


SIMPLICITY 


MY   STAR 


Written  when  an  open  window  at  night  fur- 
nished the  writer  habitually  her  only  glimpse  of 
the  outer  world. 

A  scrap  of  sky 

Have   I; 
Great  wealth  it  is  to  me, 

Such  glorious  things 
Therein  I  see. 


The  morning  star 
Comes  from  afar; 
For  me  it  shines  so  bright, 
Brings  me  a  heavenly  light, 
Sent  from  my  Lord  above, 
That  I  may  trust  His  love. 

Mary  Osgood. 

&        £?        & 

There  are  too  many  humble  people  who  wish 
to  imitate  the  great,  too  many  poor  working  men 
who  ape  the  well-to-do  middle  classes,  too  many 
shop-girls  who  play  at  being  ladies,  too  many 
clerks  who  act  the  club-man  or  sportsman;  and 
among  those  in  easy  circumstances  and  the  rich 
are  too  many  people  who  forget  that  what  they 
possess  could  serve  a  better  purpose  than  pro- 
curing pleasure  for  themselves,  only  to  find  in  the 
end  that  one  never  has  enough. 

Charles  Wagner. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Happiness  is  to  be  found  in  congenial  work, 
in  a  regular  and  well-spent  life,  in  obscurity  and 
retirement,  in  sound  and  true  friendship,  and 
especially  in  the  love  of  a  man  and  a  woman  who 
thoroughly  appreciate  each  other. 

Max  O'Retl. 


To  gild  refined  gold,  to  paint  the  lily, 

To  throw  a  perfume  on  the  violet, 

To  smoothe  the  ice,  or  add  another  hue 

Unto  the  rainbow,  or  with  taper  light 

To  seek  the  beauteous  eye  of  heaven  to  garnish, 

Is  wasteful  and  ridiculous  excess. 

Shakespeare. 


The   ultimate,   the   deepest   kind 


-- 


implicity 


Felix  Mdler. 

Why  are  the  simplicity  of  youth,  the  caresses 
of  infants,  and  the  plainness  of  the  rustic  pleas- 
ing? They  are  unhackneyed  in  vice,  devoid  of 
art,  and  their  whole  soul  beams  in  their  faces, 
and  sparkles  in  their  eyes. 

J.  Barrett. 

Upright  simplicity  is  the  deepest  wisdom,  and 
perverse  craft  the  merest  shallowness. 


SIMPLICITY 


It  is  more  honourable  to  be  content  with  few 
outward  means,  than  with  many;  to  be  cheer- 
ful amidst  privation,  than  amidst  overflowing 
plenty.  A  poor  man,  living  on  bread  and  water, 
because  he  will  not  ask  for  more  than  bare  sus- 
tenance requires,  and  leading  a  quiet,  cheerful 
life  through  his  benevolent  sympathies,  his  joy  in 
duty,  his  trust  in  God,  is  one  of  the  true  heroes  of 
the  race,  and  understands  better  the  meaning  of 
happiness  than  we,  who  cannot  be  at  ease  unless 
we  clothe  ourselves  "  in  purple,  and  fare  sump- 
tuously every  day,"  unless  we  surround,  defend, 
and  adorn  ourselves  with  all  the  products  of 
nature  and  art.  His  scantiness  of  outward  means 
is  a  sign  of  inward  fulness,  whilst  the  slavery  in 
which  most  of  us  live,  to  luxuries  and  accommo- 
dations, shows  the  poverty  within. 

William  Ellery   Charming. 


The  very  simplicity  and  nakedness  of  man's  life 
in  the  primitive  ages  imply  this  advantage,  at 
least,  that  they  left  him  still  but  a  sojourner  in 
nature.  When  he  was  refreshed  with  food  and 
sleep  he  contemplated  his  journey  again.  He 
dwelt,  as  it  were,  in  a  tent  in  this  worldi  and 
was  either  threading  the  valleys,  or  crossing  the 
plains,  or  climbing  the  mountain-tops.  But,  lo! 
men  have  become  the  tools  of  their  tools. 

H.   D.    Thorea 
5' 


THE  VALUE  OF 

The  poet's  noblest  duty  is, 

Whatever  theme   he  sings, 
To  draw  the  soul  of  beauty  forth 

From  unconsidered  things. 
That,  howsoe'er  despised  may  be 

The  humblest  form  of  earth, 
His   kindly   sympathy   may   weave 

A  halo  round  its  birth. 

For  deepest  in  creation's  midst 

The  rarest  treasure  lies, 
And  deeper  than  all  science  delves 

May  reach  the  poet's  eyes. 
And,  with  poetic  instinct  fired, 

He  finds  his  greatest  part 
In  raising  Nature's  hidden  gems 

To  set  them  in  his  art. 

Charles  Warren  Stoddard. 


"  Silks  and  satins,  scarlets  and  velvets,"  as 
Poor  Richard  says,  "  put  out  the  kitchen  fire." 

These  are  not  the  necessaries  of  life;  they  can 
scarcely  be  called  the  conveniences;  and  yet, 
only  because  they  look  pretty,  how  many  want 
to  have  them!  The  artificial  wants  of  mankind 
thus  become  more  numerous  than  the  natural; 
and,  as  Poor  Dick  says,  "  For  one  poor  person 
there  are  a  hundred  indigent." 

Benjamin  franklin. 

52 


SIMPLICITY 


It  is  well  to  let  down  our  metropolitan  pride 
a  little.  Man  thinks  himself  at  the  top,  and  that 
the  immense  display  and  prodigality  of  Nature 
are  for  him.  But  they  are  no  more  for  him  than 
they  are  for  the  birds  and  beasts,  and  he  is  no 
more  at  the  top  than  they  are. 

John  Burroughs. 
&        &        & 

w*^^^  Irak 

A  mind  at  peace  with  all  below, 

A  heart  whose  love  is  innocent. 

Lord  Byron. 

£?        &        & 

The  Spirit  of  God  creates  in  us  the  simplicity 
and  warmth  of  heart  which  children  have,  nay, 
rather  the  perfections  of  His  heavenly  hosts, 
high  and  low  being  joined  together  in  His  mys- 
terious work;  for  what  are  implicit  trust,  ardent 
love,  abiding  purity,  but  the  mind  both  of  little 
children  and  of  the  adoring  seraphim! 

John  Henry  tfewman. 


I  would  rather  sit  on  a  pumpkin,  and  have  it 
all  to  myself,  than  be  crowded  on  a  velvet  cushion. 
I  would  rather  ride  on  earth  in  an  ox-cart,  with 
a  free  circulation,  than  go  to  heaven  in  the 
fancy  car  of  an  excursion  train  and  breathe  a 
malaria  all  the  way. 

H,  D.  Thoreau. 

53 


THE  VALUE  OF 

He  that  loves  a  rosy  cheek 

Or  a  coral  lip  admires, 
Or  from  star-like  eyes  doth  seek 

Fuel  to  maintain  his  fires; 
As  old  Time  makes  these  decay, 
So  his  flames  must  waste  away. 

But  a  smooth  and  steadfast  mind, 
Gentle  thoughts,  and  calm  desires, 

Hearts  with  equal  love  combined, 
Kindle  never-dying  fires:  — 

Where  these  are  not,  I  despise 

Lovely  cheeks  or  lips  or  eyes. 

T.  Caretv. 


An  inborn  charm  of  graciousness 
Made  sweet  her  smile  and  tone, 

And  glorified  her  farm-wife  dress 
With  beauty  not  its  own. 

J.   G.    Whittle r. 


We  have  seen  men  commit  suicide  because 
their  means  had  fallen  under  a  certain  minimum. 
They  preferred  to  disappear  rather  than  retrench. 
Observe  that  this  minimum,  the  cause  of  their 
despair,  would  have  been  sufficient  for  others 
of  less  exacting  needs,  and  enviable  to  men  whose 
tastes  are  modest. 

Charles  Wagner. 

54 


SIMPLICITY 

The  way  of  simplicity  is  hard.  In  the  scientific 
world,  every  one  is  looking  for  new  simplifica- 
tions of  thought,  and  yet  they  are  not  in  view. 
In  the  moral  world,  too,  we  shall  have  to  go 
through  many  gropings  and  much  going  astray, 
before  we  shall  find  that  true  simplicity  for  which 
we  seek.  Simplicity  is  the  last  elixir,  distilled  by 
fermentation.  It  is  the  last  finish  that  comes  of 
much  complexity. 

Felix  Jtdler. 


The  dear  Lord's  best  interpreters 
Are  humble  human  souls; 

The  Gospel  of  a  life  like  hers 
Is  more  than  books  or  scrolls. 


J.  G.  Whittier. 

&      &      & 

Fashion  is  a  poor  vocation.  Its  creed,  that  idle- 
ness is  a  privilege  and  work  a  disgrace,  is  among 
the  deadliest  errors.  Without  depth  of  thought, 
or  earnestness  of  feeling,  or  strength  of  purpose, 
living  an  unreal  life,  sacrificing  substance  to  show, 
substituting  the  factitious  for  the  natural,  mis- 
taking a  crowd  for  society,  finding  its  chief  pleas- 
ure in  ridicule,  and  exhausting  its  ingenuity  in 
expedients  for  killing  time,  fashion  is  among  the 
last  influences  under  which  a  human  being,  who 
respects  himself  or  who  comprehends  the  great 
end  of  life,  would  desire  to  be  placed. 

William  Ellery  Charming. 
55 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Some  keep  the  Sabbath  going  to  church; 
I  keep  it  staying  at  home, 
With  a  bobolink  for  a  chorister, 
And  an  orchard  for  a  dome. 


Some  keep  the  Sabbath  in  surplice; 
I  just  wear  my  wings. 

Emily  Dickinson 


O,  but  man,  proud  man! 
Drest  in  a  little  brief  authority, 
Most  ignorant  of  what  he's  most  assured, 
His  glassy  essence,  like  an  angry  ape, 
Plays  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven 
As  make  the  angels  weep. 

Shakespeare. 


Come    down,    O    maid,    from    yonder    mountain 

height: 

What  pleasure  lives  in  height  (the  shepherd  sang) 
In  height  and  cold,  the  splendour  of  the  hills? 
But  cease  to  move  so  near  the  Heavens,  and  cease 
To  glide  a  sunbeam  by  the  blasted  Pine, 
To  sit  a  star  upon  the  sparkling  spire; 
And  come,  for  Love  is  of  the  valley,  come, 
For  Love  is  of  the  valley,  come  thou  down 
And  find  him;   by  the  happy  threshold,  he, 
Or  hand  in  hand  with  Plenty  in  the  maize. 

Jtlfred  Tennyson 
56 


SIMPLICITY 

There  is  one  test  which  few  books  can  stand: 
To  be  read  at  sea  or  among  the  mountains  or  in 
the  sunshine.  Books  which  have  been  written 
within  the  four  walls  of  a  room  have  little  or 
no  affiliation  with  the  open  air.  Poetry  such  as 
Longfellow  wrote  is  essentially  house-poetry. 
It  may  be  tested  by  technical  and  grammatical 
rules.  But  you  must  take  Whitman  to  the  moun- 
tains or  the  seashore.  What  would  stand  if  the 
sea  and  the  mountains,  forests,  clouds,  passed 
judgments  on  our  books! 

Oscar  L.  Trlggs. 
&        &        & 

It  is  a  beauteous  evening,  calm  and  free; 
The  holy  time  is  quiet  as  a  nun 
Breathless  with  adoration;    the  broad  sun 
Is  sinking  down  in  its  tranquillity; 

The  gentleness  of  heaven  is  on  the  Sea: 
Listen!   the  mighty  being  is  awake, 
And  doth  with  his  eternal  motion  make 
A  sound  like  thunder  —  everlastingly. 

Dear  child!   dear  girl!  that  walkest  with  me  here, 
If  thou  appear  untouch'd  by  solemn  thought 
Thy  nature  is  not  therefore  less  divine: 

Thou  liest  in  Abraham's  bosom  all  the  year, 
And  worship'st  at  the  Temple's  inner  shrine, 
God  being  with  thee  when  we  know  it  not. 

William  Wordsworth, 

57 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Howe'er  it  be,  it  seems  to  me 

'Tis  only  noble  to  be  good; 
Kind  hearts  are  more  than  coronets, 

And  simple  faith  than  Norman  blood. 

Mlfred  Tennyson. 


The  test  of  a  strong,  simple  sermon  is  results, 
—  not  the  Sunday  praise  of  the  auditors,  but 
their  bettered  lives  during  the  week.  People 
who  pray  on  their  knees  on  Sunday  and  prey 
on  their  neighbours  on  Monday,  need  simplicity 
in  their  faith. 

William  George  Jordan. 

Full  apt  are  we  to  set  before  ourselves  as  the 
essence  of  life's  bliss,  the  great  things,  the  showy 
things,  the  noteworthy  things,  but  therein  are  we 
beguiled,  therein  are  we  blinded.  Greatness  hath 
little  to  do  with  happiness. 

Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 


Methinks  I  love  all  common  things, 
The  common  air,  the  common  flower, 

The  dear,  kind,  common  thought  that  springs 
From  hearts  that  have  no  other  dower, 
No  other  wealth,  no  other  power, 

Save  love;    and  will  not  that  repay 

For  all  else  fortune  tears  away? 

Bryan  Waller  Procter. 

58 


SIMPLICITY 


Simplicity  consists  in  a  just  medium,  in  which 
we  are  neither  too  much  excited,  nor  too  sedate; 
the  soul  is  not  carried  away  by  external  things, 
so  as  to  be  unable  to  reflect;  neither  does  it  make 
those  continual  references  to  self,  which  a  jealous 
sense  of  its  own  excellence  multiplies  to  infinity. 
That  freedom  of  the  soul  which  looks  straight 
onward  in  its  path,  losing  no  time  to  reason  upon 
its  steps,  to  study  them,  or  to  dwell  upon  those 
which  it  has  already  taken,  is  true  simplicity. 

Fenelon. 
&       &       & 

Oh!   could  the  faith  of  childhood's  days, 
Oh!   could  its  little  hymns  of  praise, 
Oh!    could  its  simple,  joyous  trust 
Be  re-created  from  the  dust 
That  lies  around  a  wasted  life, 
The  fruit  of  many  a  bitter  strife! 
Oh!   then  at  night  in  prayer  I'd  bend, 
And  call  my  God,  my  Father,  Friend, 
And  pray  with  childlike  faith  once  more 
The  prayer  my  mother  taught  of  yore, — 
"  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep : 
I  pray  the  Lord  my  soul  to  keep." 

Eugene  Henry  Pull 


The  true  friend  of  truth  and  good  loves  them 
under  all  forms,  but  he  loves  them  most  under 
the  most  simple  form. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Who  is  there  that  sets  himself  to  the  task  of 
steadily  watching  his  thoughts  for  the  space  of 
one  hour,  with  the  view  of  preserving  his  mind 
in  a  simple,  humble,  healthful  condition,  but  -will 
speedily  discern  in  the  multiform,  self-reflecting, 
self-admiring  emotions,  which,  like  locusts,  are 
ready  to  "  eat  up  every  green  thing  in  his  land," 
a  state  as  much  opposed  to  simplicity  and  humil- 
ity as  night  is  to  day? 

M. 


Her  presence  breathed  in  sweet  excess 
The  fragrance  of  rare  loveliness  — 

A  simple  beauty  in  her  face, 
And  in  her  form  a  simple  grace. 

She  was  so  perfect  and  so  fair, 
So  like  a  vision,  and  so  rare, 

The  air  that  touched  her  seemed  to  me 
To  thrill  with  trembling  ecstasy. 

I.  Edgar  Jones. 


If  thou  hadst  simplicity  and  purity,  thou 
wouldst  be  able  to  comprehend  all  things  with- 
out error,  and  behold  them  without  danger.  The 
pure  heart  safely  pervades  not  only  heaven,  but 
hell. 

Thomas  a  Jfempis. 
60 


SIMPLICITY 


Come  back  to  the  inn,  love,  and  the  lights  and 

the   fire, 
And  the  fiddler's  old  tune  and  the  shuffling  of 

feet; 

For  there  in  a  while  shall  be  rest  and  desire, 
And  there  shall  the  morrow's  uprising  be  sweet. 

William  Morris. 


The  fairest  lives,  in  my  opinion,  are  those  which 
regularly  accommodate  themselves  to  the  com- 
mon and  human  model,  without  miracle,  without 
extravagance. 

Montaigne. 

&       &       & 

Great  men  unite  their  actions  with  simplicity, 
because  they  receive  more  glory  from  facts  than 
from  words. 

Montesquieu. 

«^        £?        £? 

How  aesthetics  would  gain  by  more  simplicity! 
Instead  of  this  luxury  in  job  lots,  all  these  decora- 
tions, pretentious  but  vapid  from  iteration,  we 
should  have  an  infinite  variety;  happy  improvi- 
sations would  strike  our  eyes,  the  unexpected  in  a 
thousand  forms  would  rejoice  our  hearts,  and 
we  should  rediscover  the  secret  of  impressing  on 
a  drapery  or  a  piece  of  furniture  that  stamp  of 
human  personality  which  makes  certain  antiques 
priceless. 

Charles  Wagner. 

61 


Happy  those  early  days,  when  I 

Shined  in  my  Angel-infancy! 

Before   I  understood  this  place 

Appointed  for  my  second  race, 

Or  taught  my  soul  to  fancy  aught 

But  a  white,  celestial  thought; 

When  yet  I  had  not  walk'd  above 

A  mile  or  two  from  my  first  Love, 

And  looking  back,  at  that  short  space 

Could  see  a  glimpse  of  his  bright  face; 

When  on  some  gilded  cloud  or  flower 

My  gazing  soul  would  dwell  an  hour, 

And  in  those  weaker  glories  spy 

Some  shadows  of  eternity; 

Before  I  taught  my  tongue  to  wound 

My  conscience  with  a  sinful  sound, 

Or  had  the  black  art  to  dispense 

A  several  sin  to  every  sense, 

But  felt  through  all  this  fleshly  dress 

Bright  shoots  of  everlastingness. 

O  how  I  long  to  travel  back, 

And  tread  again  that  ancient  track! 

That  I  might  once  more  reach  that  plain, 

Where  first  I  left  my  glorious  train; 

From  whence  th'  enlighten'd  spirit  sees 

That  shady  City  of  Palm  trees! 

But  ah!  my  soul  with  too  much  stay 

Is  drunk,  and  staggers  in  the  way :  — 

Some  men  a  forward  motion  love, 

But  I  by  backward  steps  would  move; 


/70V       ^ ,^ 

SIMPLICITY 

And  when  this  dust  falls  to  the  urn, 
In  that  state  I  came,  return. 

Henry  Vaughan. 

When  a  thought  is  too  weak  to  be  with  sim- 
plicity expressed,  it  is  a  proof  that  it  should  be 
rejected. 

Vauvenargue*. 


. 

e  spirit  of  simplicity  is  a  great  magician. 
It  softens  asperities,  bridges  chasms,  draws  to- 
gether hands  and  hearts.  The  forms  which  it 
takes  in  the  world  are  infinite  in  number;  but 
never  does  it  seem  to  us  more  admirable  than 
when  it  shows  itself  across  the  fatal  barriers 
of  position,  interest,  or  prejudice. 

Charles  Wagner. 


Oft,  when  the  wine  in  his  glass  was  red, 
He  longed  for  the  wayside  well  instead; 

And  closed  his  eyes  on  his  garnished  rooms 
To  dream  of  meadows  and  clover-blooms. 

J.   G.    Whit  tier. 

The  thing  aimed  at  by  all  great  souls  has  been 
to  bring  men  and  races  back  to  the  simplicity 
and  purity  of  childhood  —  back  to  reality. 

Booker  T.    Washington. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


With  little  here  to  do  or  see 

Of  things  that  in  the  great  world  be, 

Sweet  Daisy!   oft  I  talk  to  thee 

For  thou  art  worthy, 
Thou  unassuming  commonplace 
Of  Nature,  with  that  homely  face, 
And  yet  with  something  of  a  grace 

Which  love  makes  for  thee ! 

Willium  Wordsworth. 


We  are  apt  to  forget,  in  praising  the  multi- 
plication of  wants,  that  mere  multiplication  is 
not  a  benefit,  unless  at  the  same  time  that  wants 
are  multiplied,  they  are  also  integrated.  Pastor 
Wagner  admits  that  the  multiplication  of  wants 
is  conducive  to  the  advance  of  civilization;  he 
does  not  wish  to  turn  the  hands  on  the  dial 
backward;  he  is  no  eulogist  of  asceticism. 

What  he  says  is  that  we  are  too  heavily  loaded, 
that  we  are  carrying  too  much  baggage,  that 
we  would  better  discharge  our  burdens,  or  a 
part  of  them.  This  complex  civilization  has 
put  so  many  cares,  so  many  unnecessary  anx- 
ieties upon  us  that  we  walk  bent  and  stooping. 
He  cries  out  that  we  are  spending  our  precious 
lives  in  trying  to  get  no  end  of  things  which  we 
really  do  not  care  for,  and  that  we  miss  the  things 
for  which  at  heart  we  do  care. 

Felix  Mdler. 


SIMPLICITY 

There  is  doubt  whether  the  simplicity  that  be- 
comes a  fad  is  simplicity  at  all.  Gluttony  and 
extravagant  houses  and  the  weary  dissipations  of 
the  inane  rich  are  bad  diseases  of  a  small  sec- 
tion of  American  society;  but,  bad  as  they  are, 
they  startle  one  less  than  the  making  of  simplicity 
a  sort  of  cult;  for  whosoever  seeks  it  in  any 
way  but  in  modesty  and  by  personal  habit  can- 
not find  it.  It  begins  in  a  state  of  mind,  the  very 
state  of  mind  that  abhors  a  fad.  To  go  about 
acquiring  simplicity  with  great  ado  —  that  justi- 
fies the  jibes  of  all  our  enemies.  Must  we  seek 
our  very  silences  noisily? 

Walter  H.  Page. 


The  cowslip  startles  in  meadows  green, 

The  buttercup  catches  the  sun  in  its  chalice, 
And  there's  never  a  leaf  nor  a  blade  too  mean 

To  be  some  happy  creature's  palace; 
The  little  bird  sits  at  his  door  in  the  sun, 

Atilt  like  a  blossom  among  the  leaves, 
And  lets  his  illumined  being  o'errun 

With  the  deluge  of  summer  it  receives; 
His  mate  feels  the  eggs  beneath  her  wings, 
And  the  heart  in  her  dumb  breast  flutters 

sings; 

He  sings  to  the  wide  world,  and  she  to  her  nest  — 
In  the  nice  ear  of  Nature  which  song  is  the  best? 

James  Russell  Lowell. 
65 


and 


THE  VALUE  OF 


There  are  certain  occasions  when,  in  art,  sim- 
plicity is  an  audacious  originality. 

Mchilles  Polncelot. 
*        *       * 

Simplicity  is  the  pure  white  light  of  a  life 
lived  from  within.  It  is  destroyed  by  any  attempt 
to  live  in  harmony  with  public  opinion. 

William  George  Jordan. 


The  most  pathetic  thing  about  our  modern  life 
is  the  revelation  which  it  gives  of  multitudes  who 
are  overburdened,  who  are  tired  even  of  good 
and  great  things.  The  message  that  has  come 
to  us  as  if  it  were  a  gospel  is  the  great  word, 

all  things  are  yours." 

"  All  the  good  the  past  has  had, 
Remains  to  make  our  own  time  glad," 


we  say.  But  does  it  make  our  own  time  glad, 
this  haunting  sense  of  a  good  we  have  not  per- 
sonally grasped,  of  the  wisdom  and  truth  all 
around  us,  but  disorderly  to  our  mind?  Does  this 
make  us  glad,  does  it  not  bring  rather  the  feeling 
of  those  who  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and 
who  long,  above  all  things  on  earth,  for  sim- 
plicity, directness,  peace? 

Samuel  At.  Crothers. 


SIMPLICITY 


Why  dream  of  lands  of  gold  and  pear 

Of  loving  knight  and  lady, 
When  farmer  boy  and  barefoot  girl 

Were  wandering  there  already? 

J.   G.   Whit  tier.-    "Burnt.' 


Teach  me,  Father,  how  to  go 
Softly  as  the  grasses  grow; 
Hush  my  soul  to  meet  the  shock 
Of  the  wild  world  as  a  rock; 
But  my  spirit,  propt  with  power, 
Make  as  simple  as  a  flower; 
Let  the  dry  heart  fill  its  cup, 
Like  a  poppy  looking  up; 
Let  Life  lightly  wear  her  crown, 
Like  the  poppy  looking  down, 
When  its  heart  is  filled  with  dew, 
And  its  life  begins  anew. 


Teach  me,  Father,  how  to  be 
Kind  and  patient  as  a  tree; 
Joyfully  the  crickets  croon 
Under  shady  oak  at  noon; 
Beetle,  on  his  mission  bent, 
Tarries  in  that  cooling  tent; 
Let  me,  also,  cheer  a  spot, 
Hidden  field  or  garden  grot  — 
Place  where  passing  souls  can  rest 
On  the  way  and  be  their  best. 

Edwin  Markham. 
67 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Listen,  dear  reader,  it  is  the  common  things 
that  quench  thirst,  not  rare  things;  ordinaries, 
not  luxuries;  not  palatial  houses,  but  a  home; 
not  royal  wine,  but  cold  water. 

Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 


Simplicity  and  grace  seem  to  be  the  elements 
to  charm. 

Mrs.  Sigourney. 
&       &       & 


"Tis  the  mind  that  makes  the  body  rich; 
And  as  the  sun  breaks  through  the  darkest  clouds, 
So  honour  peereth  in  the  meanest  habit. 
What,  is  the  jay  more  precious  than  the  lark, 
Because  his  feathers  are  more  beautiful? 
Or  is  the  adder  better  than  the  eel, 
Because  his  painted  skin  contents  the  eye? 

Shakespeare. 


Her  entire  person  was  simplicity,  ingenuous- 
ness, whiteness,  candour,  and  radiance,  and  it 
might  have  been  said  of  her  that  she  was  trans- 
parent. She  produced  a  sensation  of  April  and 
daybreak,  and  she  had  dew  in  her  eyes.  She  was 
the  condensation  of  the  light  of  dawn  in  a 
woman's  form. 

Victor  Hugo:    "  Les  Miserable*. 

63 


SIMPLICITY 


A  rose  will  wither,  so  will  love, 
When  love  grows  overwise. 

Keep  all  thy  petals,  O  my  heart, 
While  the  short  summer  flies! 

Let  gladness  be  their  gentle  sun, 
And  innocence  their  dew, 

Ask  the  warm  April  rain  to  fall, 
And  wash  all  care  from  you. 

gs^v^         @a 

And  if  love  went  the  truant  way 
And  you  have  lost  his  track, 

Be   faithful   to   simplicity 
And  you  shall  win  him  back. 


Hush!     the    soft    fingers    of    desire 

Tap  at  the  stoic  will; 
Be  very  simple,  O  my  heart, 

And  love  will  enter  still. 

Frederic  Lawrence  J^notvles. 


I  do  not  want  to  be  compelled  to  expend  any 
force  upon  the  poet's  form  —  I  want  it  all  for  his 
thought.     A   tortuous  and  difficult  channel  may 
add  to  the  beauty  of  a  mountain  brook,  but  it 
oes  not  add  to  the  beauty  of  a  poem. 

John  Burroughs. 


Simplicity  has  an  abiding  charm. 


W.  Hague. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Thoreau  tells  us  he  threw  away  the  ornaments 
on  his  mantel  that  he  might  not  lose  the  time  in 
dusting  them  that  could  be  better  employed.  Our 
genial  contemporary  in  England  —  the  author  of 
"  Towards  Democracy  "  —  will  have  no  tailor's 
stuffings  or  linings  and  such  whigmaleeries  what- 
ever in  his  coats.  When  a  certain  lady  (usually 
identified  by  writers  with  mock-modesty  by  say- 
ing that  she  shall  be  nameless)  went  down  to  my 
island  "  Shingleshack "  in  the  woods,  she  con- 
fessed to  a  feeling  of  envy  at  the  easy  terms  on 
which  I  had  secured  all  the  comforts  necessary 
to  happy  days.  No  carpets,  matting,  or  rugs;  no 
curtains  or  hangings;  no  framed  pictures  or  bric- 
a-brac,  no  books  to  speak  of,  rustic  furniture 
home-made  or  uninjurable  —  just  pure  comfort  by 
the  great  fireplace,  ease  and  simplicity  in  the  culi- 
nary department,  and  the  day  left  for  higher 
uses.  No  dust,  no  wagons;  the  boats  at  the 
door,  and  the  well,  too;  magnificent  mountain 
scenery  without,  and  peace  and  quiet  within.  An 
axe  for  the  woods,  a  carpenter's  bench  and  a 
few  tools,  a  hammer  for  geology,  an  opera-glass 
for  the  birds.  No  butcher  and  no  baker  and  no 
candlestick  maker;  but  squirrels  running  over  the 
roof  and  the  annually  punctual  phoebe  in  her  nest 
on  the  bracket  of  the  eaves. 

William  S.  Kennedy. 


70 


SIMPLICITY 

My  fairest  child,  I  have  no  song  to  give  you; 

No  lark  could  pipe  in  skies  so  dull  and  gray; 
Yet,  if  you  will,  one  quiet  hint  I'll  leave  you, 

For  every  day. 

I'll  tell  you  how  to  sing  a  clearer  carol 
Than  lark  who  hails  the  dawn  on  breezy  down, 

To  earn  yourself  a  purer  poet's  laurel 
Than  Shakespeare's  crown. 


Be  good,  sweet  maid,  and  let  who  can  be  clever; 

Do  lovely  things,  not  dream  them,  all  day  long; 
And  so  make  Life,  and  Death,  and  that  For  Ever, 

One  grand  sweet  song. 

Charles  Ifingsley. 
&        &        & 

Simplicity  is  a  mental  soil  where  artifice,  lying, 
deceit,  treachery,  and  selfish,  low  ambition  can- 
not grow. 

William.  George  Jordan. 


How  simple  a  thing  then  does  salvation  become! 
It  is  receiving  Him.  Justification  is  a  free  gift; 
so  is  faith;  so  is  forgiveness;  so  is  eternal  life. 
It  is  because  the  human  heart  is  proud  and  does 
not  take  to  gifts  that  we  have  made  our  Chris- 
tianity such  a  complex  thing. 

Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 

_^uJ^^    .^^  ^T 
71 


THE  VALUE  OF 

For   crystal   brows   there's   nought  within; 

They  are  but  empty  cells  for  pride; 
He  who  the  Syren's  hair  would  win 

Is  mostly  strangled  in  the  tide. 

Give  me,  instead  of  Beauty's  bust, 

A  tender  heart,  a  loyal  mind 
Which  with  temptation  I  would  trust, 

Yet  never  link'd  with  error  find, — 


One  in  whose  gentle  bosom  I 
Could  pour  my  secret  heart  of  woes, 

Like  the  care-burthen'd  honey-fly 
That  hides  his  murmurs  in  the  rose. 

,  Jtnon. 

Not  fair  as  men  would  reckon  fair, 
Nor  noble  as  they  count  the  line: 

Only  as  graceful  as  a  bough, 
And  tendrils  of  the  vine: 

Only  as  noble  as  sweet  Eve, 
Your  ancestress  and  mine. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


Keep  back  the  one  word  more, 

Nor  give  of  your  whole  store; 

For,  it  may  be,  in  Art's  sole  hour  of  need, 

Lacking  that  word,  you  shall  be  poor  indeed. 

Lizette  Woodworth  Reese. 

72 


SIMPLICITY 


Having  simple  needs,  you  find  it  less  painful 
to  accustom  yourself  to  the  hazards  of  fortune. 
You  remain  a  man,  though  you  lose  your  office 
or  your  income,  because  the  foundation  on  which 
your  life  rests  is  not  your  table,  your  cellar,  your 
horses,  your  goods  and  chattels,  or  your  money. 
In  adversity  you  will  not  act  like  a  nursling  de- 
prived of  its  bottle  and  rattle. 

Charles  Wagner. 


He  goes  on  Sunday  to  the  church, 

And  sits  among  his  boys; 
He  hears  the  parson  pray  and  preach, 

He  hears  his  daughter's  voice, 
Singing  in  the  village  choir, 

And  it  makes  his  heart  rejoice. 

It  sounds  to  him  like  her  mother's  voice, 

Singing  in  Paradise! 
He  needs  must  think  of  her  once  more, 

How  in  the  grave  she  lies; 
And  with  his  hard,  rough  hand  he  wipes 

A  tear  out  of  his  eyes. 

Toiling,  —  rejoicing,  —  sorrowing, 

Onward  through  life  he  goes; 
Each  morning  sees  some  task  begin, 

Each  evening  sees  its  close; 
Something  attempted,  something  done, 

Has  earned  a  night's  repose. 

Longfellow 

73 


THE  VALUE  OF 


One  passage  in  your  Letter  a  little  displeas'd 
me.  The  rest  was  nothing  but  kindness,  which 
Robert's  letters  are  ever  brimful  of.  You  say  that 
"  this  World  to  you  seems  drain'd  of  all  its 
sweets!  "  At  first  I  had  hoped  you  only  meant 
to  intimate  the  high  price  of  Sugar!  but  I  am 
afraid  you  meant  more.  O,  Robert,  I  don't  know 
what  you  call  sweet.  Honey  and  the  honeycomb, 
roses  and  violets,  are  yet  in  the  earth.  The  sun 
and  moon  yet  reign  in  Heaven,  and  the  lesser 
lights  keep  up  their  pretty  twinklings.  Meats  and 
drinks,  sweet  sights  and  sweet  smells,  a  country 
walk,  spring  and  autumn,  follies  and  repentance, 
quarrels  and  reconcilements  have  all  a  sweetness 
by  turns.  Good-humour  and  good-nature,  friends 
at  home  that  love  you,  and  friends  abroad  that 
miss  you  —  you  possess  all  these  things,  and  more 
innumerable,  and  these  are  all  sweet  things. 
You  may  extract  honey  from  everything. 

Charles  Lamb  to  Robert  Lloyd. 

i  \/   iml/ 


Amid  the  rich  and  cultured  blooms  that  shined, 
By  friendly  hands  bound  in  a  birthday  gift, 
I  found  the  homely,  dear  white  clover  hid, 
And  thanked  at  heart  the  thought  which  placed  it 

there,  — 

The  plain,  good  flower  that  cheerfully  fulfils 
Its  homely  duties  in  the  common  field. 

Samuel  Longfellow, 


SIMPLICITY 


Away,  away,  from  men  and  towns, 
To  the  wild  wood  and  the  downs 
To  the  silent  wilderness 
Where  the  soul  need  not  repress 
Its  music,  lest  it  should  not  find 
An  echo  in  another's  mind, 
While  the  touch  of  Nature's  art 
Harmonizes  heart  to  heart. 


P.   B.  Shelley 


Simplicity   of   manners   and  taste   is   the   most 
desirable  thing  in  the  world. 

Mrs.  Dinnies. 


Life  is  not  made  up  of  great  sacrifices  or  duties, 
but  of  little  things,  of  which  smiles  and  kindness 
and  small  obligations  given  habitually,  are  what 
win  and  preserve  the  heart. 

Sir  Humphrey  Davy. 


The  accumulations  of  our  civilization  are  enor- 
mous: an  artificial  world  of  great  depth  and 
potency  overlies  the  world  of  reality;  especially 
does  it  overlie  the  world  of  man's  moral  and  in- 
tellectual nature.  Most  of  us  live  and  thrive  in 
this  artificial  world,  and  never  know  but  it  is 
the  world  of  God's  own  creating. 

John  Burroughs. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Let  me  live  harmlessly;   and  near  the  brink 
Of  Trent  or  Avon  have  a  dwelling-place, 

Where  I  may  see  my  quill  or  cork  down  sink 
With  eager  bite  of  perch,  or  bleak,  or  dace; 

And  on  the  world  and  my  Creator  think: 
Whilst    some    men    strive    ill-gotten    goods    t 
embrace, 

And  others  spend  their  time  in  base  excess 

Of  wine,  or  worse,  in  war  and  wantonness. 

Let  them  that  list,  these  pastimes  still  pursue; 

And  on  such  pleasing  fancies  feed  their  fill; 
So  I  the  fields  and  meadows  green  may  view, 

And  daily  by  fresh  rivers  walk  at  will, 
Among  the  daisies  and  the  violets  blue, 

Red  hyacinth  and  yellow  daffodil, 
Purple  narcissus  like  the  morning  rays, 
Pale  gander-grass,  and  azure  culverkeys. 

Joseph  D  avors. 


What  can  I  give  Him, 

Poor  as  I  am? 
If  I  were  a  shepherd 

I  would  bring  a  lamb; 
If  I  were  a  wise  man 

I  would  do  my  part; 
Yet  what  can  I  give  Him? 

Give  my  heart. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 

76 


SIMPLICITY 


I  use  strong  language,  because  I  would  combat 
the  disposition,  too  common  in  the  labouring 
mass,  to  regard  what  is  called  the  upper  class 
with  envy  or  admiration.  This  disposition  mani- 
fests itself  among  them  in  various  forms.  Thus, 
when  one  of  their  number  prospers,  he  is  apt  to 
forget  his  old  acquaintance,  and  to  work  his  way, 
if  possible,  into  a  more  fashionable  caste.  As 
far,  indeed,  as  he  extends  his  acquaintance  among 
the  intelligent,  refined,  generous,  and  truly  hon- 
ourable, he  makes  a  substantial  improvement  of 
his  condition;  but  if,  as  is  too  often  the  case,  he  is 
admitted  by  way  of  favour  into  a  circle,  which 
has  few  claims,  beyond  those  of  greater  luxury 
and  show,  and  which  bestows  on  him  a  patroniz- 
ing, condescending  notice  in  exchange  for  his 
old,  honourable  influence  among  his  original 
associates,  he  does  anything  but  rise.  Such  is  not 
the  elevation  I  desire  for  the  labourer.  I  do  not 
desire  him  to  struggle  into  another  rank.  Let 
him  not  be  a  servile  copyist  of  other  classes,  but 
aim  at  something  higher  than  has  yet  been  real- 
ized in  any  body  of  men.  Let  him  not  associate 
the  idea  of  Dignity  or  Honour  with  certain 
modes  of  living,  or  certain  outward  connections. 
I  would  have  every  man  stand  on  his  own  ground, 
and  take  his  place  among  men  according  to  per- 
sonal endowments  and  worth,  and  not  according 
to  outward  appendages;  and  I  would  have  every 
member  of  the  community  furnished  with  such 

77 


THE  VALUE  OF 


means  of  improvement,  that,  if  faithful  to  himself, 
he  may  need  no  outward  appendage  to  attract  the 
respect  of  all  around  him. 

William  Ellery  Channing. 


\\ 


Do  the  work  that's  nearest, 

Though  it's  dull  at  whiles, 
Helping  when  we  meet  them 

Lame  dogs  over  stiles. 

Charles  Iflngsley. 


Remember  that  the  chance  to  do  the  great 
heroic  work  may  or  may  not  come.  If  it  does 
not  come,  then  all  that  there  can  be  to  our  credit 
is  the  faithful  performance  of  every-day  duty. 
That  is  all  that  most  of  us,  throughout  our  lives, 
have  the  chance  to  do,  and  it  is  enough,  because 
it  is  the  beginning  to  do,  because  it  means  most 
for  the  nation  when  done,  and  if  the  time  for 
the  showing  of  heroism  does  come,  you  may 
guarantee  that  those  who  show  it  are  most  likely 
to  be  the  people  who  have  done  their  duty  in 
average  times,  as  the  occasion  for  doing  the 
duty  arose. 

Theodore  Roosevelt* 


Simplicity  is  an  exact  medium  between  too  little 
and  too  much. 


I  love  snow  and  all  the  forms 

Of  the  radiant  frost; 
I  love  waves,  and  winds,  and  storms, 

Everything   almost 
Which  is  Nature's,  and  may  be 
Untainted  by  man's  misery. 

P.  B.  Shelley. 


I  know  not  what  it  is,  but  when  I  pass 
Some  running  bit  of  water  by  the  way, 

A  river  brimming  silver  in  the  grass, 
And  rippled  by  a  trailing  alder-spray, 

Hold  in  my  heart  I  cannot  from  a  cry, 
It  is  so  joyful  at  the  merry  sight; 

So  gracious  is  the  water  running  by, 
So  full  the  simple  grass  is  of  delight. 

Philip  Henry  Savage. 


Without  simplicity  no  human  performance  can 
arrive  to  perfection. 

Swift. 
&        &        & 

Tis   better  to   be   lowly  born, 
And  range  with  humble  livers  in  content, 
Than  to  be  perk'd  up  in  a  glistering  grief 
And  wear  a  golden  sorrow. 

Shakespeare. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

In  its  dreams,  man's  ambition  embraces  vast 
limits,  but  it  is  rarely  given  us  to  achieve  great 
things,  and  even  then,  a  quick  and  sure  success 
always  rests  on  a  groundwork  of  patient  prepara- 
tion. Fidelity  in  small  things  is  at  the  base  of 
every  great  achievement. 

Charles  Wagner. 

If  our  love  were  but  more  simple, 
We  should  take  Him  at  His  word; 

And  our  lives  would  be  all  sunshine 
In  the  sweetness  of  our  Lord. 

F.   W.  Faber. 


You  say  that  you  have  no  skill  —  that  the  Arts 
and  Crafts  movement  is  not  for  you.  You  are 
mistaken.  You  do  not  know  how  little  mystery 
there  is  in  the  making  of  things,  good  things,  nor 
what  a  large  share  common  sense  has  in  arts- 
manship.  It  must  be  so.  The  things  that  only 
the  few  can  make  are  not  for  the  many,  and  the 
many  are  much  more  important  than  the  few,  the 
"  few "  to  the  contrary.  Supplying  the  simple 
wants  and  needs  of  the  many  well,  beautifully, 
artistically,  is  the  best  of  all  careers  —  a  career 
that  must  in  the  nature  of  things  be  within  the 
reach  of  the  many,  since  only  the  many  can 
supply  the  wants  of  the  many. 

Perceval     Wiksell. 
80 


SIMPLICITY 

There  is  a  very  simple  rule  for  every  one  of 
us  that  reduces  the  perplexity  of  our  lives. 
"  Covet  earnestly  the  best  gifts."  Cultivate  that 
"  distributive  virtue  "  that  rejects  not  merely  the 
positively  bad,  but  that  casts  aside  the  lesser  for 
the  greater  good.  Give  up  the  vain  desire  of 
knowing  everything;  ask  yourself  at  every  step, 
"  What  is  the  thing  most  worth  knowing?  What 
is  most  worth  doing?"  Do  that,  and  be  not 
troubled  though  many  other  possible  tasks  re- 
main undone.  Learn  to  do  without  what  is  un- 
essential. That  is  the  condition  of  doing  joyfully 
and  effectively  that  which  is  essential.  The  man 
in  his  work,  in  his  study,  in  his  friendship,  must 
bring  everything  to  this  simple  test,  "  Is  this 
the  best  thing  for  me  at  this  moment?  I  am 
living  in  a  world  where  I  cannot  know  or  do 
everything;  I  must  choose.  Of  the  two  interests 
which  challenge  my  attention  to-day,  I  must 
choose  the  greater  thing.  Which  one  is  worth  my 
effort?  "  Step  by  step  that  man's  life  and  thought 
grow  simple,  and  he  comes  to  be  serene  in  the 
midst  of  all  distractions. 

Samuel  M .  Crothers. 


How  desirable  is  this  simplicity!  who  will  give 
it  to  me?  I  will  quit  all  else;  it  is  the  pearl  of 
great  price. 

Feneton. 

8r 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Small  service  is  true  service  while  it  lasts; 

Of  humblest  Friends,  bright  Creature,  scorn  not 

One! 
The  daisy,  by  the  shadow  that  it  casts, 

Protects  the  lingering  dewdrop  from  the  sun. 

William  Wordsworth. 


What  simplifies  life  is  to  say  something  like 
this:  "I  do  not  pretend  to  know  all  about  relig- 
ion, or  duty,  or  Christ,  but  I  do  propose  to  live 
along  the  line  of  life  which  I  will  call  toward 
Christ.  I  propose  to  think  less  of  what  I  may 
live  by,  and  more  of  what  I  may  live  toward." 
When  a  man  makes  this  decision  he  has  not, 
indeed,  solved  all  the  problems  of  life,  but  he 
has  amazingly  simplified  them.  Many  things 
which  had  been  perplexing,  disturbing,  confusing, 
now  fall  into  line  behind  that  one  comprehensive 
loyalty.  He  has,  as  it  were,  come  out  of  the 
woods,  and  found  a  high  road.  It  is  not  all  level, 
or  easy;  there  is  many  a  sharp  ascent  in  it,  and 
many  a  shadowy  valley.  But  at  least  the  way  is 
clear,  and  he  knows  whither  it  leads,  and  he  has 
found  his  bearings,  and  he  trudges  along  with 
a  quiet  mind,  even  though  with  a  weary  step,  for 
he  has  emerged  from  the  bewildering  underbrush 
of  life  into  the  "  simplicity  which  is  toward 
Christ." 

Francis  G.   Peabody. 
82 


SIMPLICITY 


A  maid  whom  there  were  none  to  praise, 

And  very  few  to  love. 
A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone 

Half -hidden  from  the  eye! 
Fair  as  a  star,  when  only  one 

Is  shining  in  the  sky. 

William  Wordsworth* 


I  would  not  have  the  restless  will 

That  hurries  to  and  fro, 
Seeking  for  some  great  thing  to  do, 

Or  secret  thing  to  know; 
I  would  be  treated  as  a  child, 

And  guided  where  I  go. 

NS^V         ¥ 

Wherever  in  the  world  I  am 

In  whatsoe'er  estate, 
I  have  a  fellowship  with  hearts 

To  keep  and  cultivate; 
And  a  work  of  lowly  love  to  do, 

For  the  Lord  on  whom  I  wait. 

So  I  ask  Thee  for  the  daily  strength, 

To  none  that  ask  denied, 
And  a  mind  to  blend  with  outward  life, 

While  keeping  at  Thy  side; 
Content  to  fill  a  little  space, 

If  Thou  be  glorified. 

Jtnna  L.  Waring. 
83 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Thanks  to  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live, 
Thanks  to  its  tenderness,  its  joys,  and  fears, 

To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears. 

William   Wordsworth. 


There  are  so  many  causes,  —  we  are  besieged  on 
every  hand.  No  one  can  show  the  slightest  in- 
terest in  public  affairs  without  at  once  becom- 
ing a  marked  man,  and  hunted  as  the  prey  of 
every  possible  cause  insisting  upon  his  co- 
operation. And  yet  this  leads  to  distraction,  to 
complexity,  to  mere  dilettanteism.  The  bane  of 
many  of  our  charities,  and  of  popular  causes, 
political  and  otherwise,  is  dilettanteism;  and  this 
cannot  be  overcome  unless  we  concentrate,  trying 
to  do  justice  to  the  one  cause,  or  to  those  few 
causes  to  which  we  ally  ourselves,  —  choosing 
them  because  we  are  in  sympathy  with  them, 
and  because  we  are  fitted  by  capacity  and  ex- 
perience to  promote  them.  Justice,  too,  the  ful- 
filment of  one's  obligations,  is  a  part  of  simplicity. 

Felix  Jtdler. 


Let  us   be  content  in  work 
To  do  the  thing  we  can;  and  not  presume 
To  fret  because  it's  little. 

E.  B.  Browning 
84 


s  I  H 

111 


SIMPLICITY 


To   true   simplicity,   to   perceive   a  truth   is  to 
begin  to  live  it,  to  see  a  duty  is  to  begin  to  do  it. 

William  George  Jordan. 

^^^L         ^^         ^r 

*>      ^      ^ 

The   beautiful   does   not   obtrude,   but   appears 
in  simplicity. 

K^rummacher. 


Simplicity  is,  of  all  things,  the  hardest  to  be 
copied. 


Richard  Steele. 


Our  life  is  like  a  German  Confederacy,  made  up 
of  petty  states,  with  its  boundary  for  ever  fluc- 
tuating, so  that  even  a  German  cannot  tell  you 
how  it  is  bounded  at  any  moment.  The  nation 
itself,  with  all  its  so-called  internal  improve- 
ments, which,  by  the  way,  are  all  external  and 
superficial,  is  just  such  an  unwieldy  and  over- 
grown establishment,  cluttered  with  furniture, 
and  tripped  up  by  its  own  traps,  ruined  by  luxury 
and  heedless  expense,  by  want  of  calculation  and 
a  worthy  aim,  as  the  million  households  in  the 
land;  and  the  only  cure  for  it  as  for  them  is  in 
a  rigid  economy,  a  stern  and  more  than  Spartan 
simplicity  of  life  and  elevation  of  purpose. 

H.  D.  Thoreau. 

85 


THE  VALUE  OF 


A  religion  of  commandments  grows  burden- 
some. A  religion  of  ceremonials  grows  weari- 
some. A  religion  of  personal  love  is  ever  buoy- 
ant with  the  spring  and  variety  of  personal  char- 
acter. .  .  .  Can  you  not  see  a  special  freshness 
and  exuberance  and  simplicity  of  joy,  a  cordial 
welcoming  of  every  new  day  as  a  new  blessing 
in  the  life  of  the  simplest  and  most  childlike 
Christians,  whose  religion  begins  and  ends  in 
this :  "  I  love  Christ  and  He  loves  me ;  and  I 
can  please  Him  if  I  am  pure  and  true  and  good; 
and  so  I  will  try  to  be  with  all  my  might  and 
His."  The  great  ministry  of  freshness  to  the  stale 
lives  of  men  is  the  Holy  Spirit,  whose  work  is 
to  take  of  the  things  of  Christ  and  show  them 
to  us. 

Phillips  Brooks. 


A   BOY'S   PRAYER 

God  who  created  me 

Nimble  and  light  of  limb, 
In  three  elements  free, 

To  run,  to  ride,  to  swim: 

Not  when  the  sense  is  dim, 
But  now  from  the  heart  of  joy, 

I  would  remember  Him: 
Take  the  thanks  of  a  boy. 

H.  C.  Seeching. 

86 


SIMPLICITY 

The  empty  vessel  makes  the  greatest  sound. 

Shakespeare. 

Small  kindnesses,  small  courtesies,  small  con- 
siderations, habitually  practised  in  our  social 
intercourse,  give  a  greater  charm  to  the  character 
than  the  display  of  great  talents  and  accomplish- 
ments. 

M.   M.   Kielty. 
£>£?&• 

Men  of  few  words  are  the  best  men. 

Shakespeare. 
&        &        & 

Oh,  for  boyhood's  painless  play, 
Sleep  that  wakes  in  laughing  day, 
Health  that  mocks  the  doctor's  rules, 
Knowledge  never  learned  of  schools, 

For,  eschewing  books   and  tasks, 
Nature  answers  all  he  asks. 

J.  G.    Whittler. 

He  sows  June  fields  with  clover,  and  the  world 

Broadcasts  with  little  common  kindnesses, 

With  plain,  good  souls  that  cheerfully  fulfil 

Their  homely  duties  in  the  common  field 

Of  daily  life,  ambitious  of  no  more 

Than  to  supply  the  needs  of  friend  or  kin. 

Samuel  Longfellow. 
87 


THE  VALUE  OF 

As  a  little  child,  that  has  not  yet  learned  to 
guide  its  own  steps,  trusts  implicitly  to  a  mother's 
wisdom  and  tenderness;  as  a  wife  loyally  fol- 
lows her  husband  through  the  darkness,  be- 
lieving where  she  cannot  see;  as  a  husband  trusts 
his  wife's  instinct  of  purity  and  goodness  before 
his  own,  —  so  I  lay  my  life  in  the  hands  of  God. 
I  try  to  do  right;  I  labour  with  my  whole  soul 
to  bring  my  will  into  accord  with  His;  and  the 
rest  I  leave  with  Him. 

Charles  Beard.. 

£?        &       £? 

,j& 

I  had  three  pieces  of  limestone  on  my  desk, 
but  I  was  terrified  to  find  that  they  required  to  be 
dusted  daily,  when  the  furniture  of  my  mind  was 
all  undusted  still,  and  I  threw  them  out  the  win- 
dow in  disgust.  How,  then,  could  I  have  a  fur- 
nished house?  I  would  rather  sit  in  the  open  air, 
for  no  dust  gathers  on  the  grass,  unless  where 
man  has  broken  ground. 

H.  D.  Thoreau. 


I  pray  not  that 
Men  tremble  at 
My  power  of  place 

And  lordly  sway, — 
I  only  pray  for  simple  grace 
To  look  my  neighbour  in  the  face 
Full  honestly  from  day  to  day.    \f^ 

James  IVhitcomb  Riley. 


SIMPLICITY 

Happy  are  those  who  have  retained  throughout 
life  their  infantine  simplicity,  which  nurses  a 
tractable  idol  in  an  unsuspicious  bosom,  is  as- 
sured 'it  knows  and  heeds  the  voice  addressing 
it,  and  shuts  it  up  again  with  a  throb  of  joy,  and 
keeps  it  warm. 

W.  S.  Landor. 


The  tanned  face,  garlanded  with  mirth, 
It  hath  the  kingliest  smile  on  earth;: 
The  swart  brow,  diamonded  with  sweat, 
Hath  never  need  of  coronet. 

James  Whitcomb  Rlley. 


He  who  cares  for  the  lily, 

And  heeds  the  sparrow's  fall, 
Shall  tenderly  lead  His  loving  child, 

For  He  made  and  loveth  all. 
And  so,  when  wearied  and  baffled, 

And  I  know  not  which  way  to  go, 
I  know  that  He  can  guide  me, 

And  'tis  all  that  I  need  to  know. 

Jtnon. 


Thy  home  is  with  the  humble,  Lord! 

The  simple  are  Thy  rest; 
Thy  lodging  is  in  childlike  hearts; 

Thou  makest  there  Thy  nest. 

F.  W.  Faber. 
89 


THE  VALUE  OF 


I  called  on  the  king,  but  he  made  me  wait  in 
his  hall,  and  conducted  like  a  man  incapacitated 
for  hospitality.  There  was  a  man  in  my  neigh- 
bourhood who  lived  in  a  hollow  tree.  His  man- 
ners were  truly  regal.  I  should  have  done  better 
had  I  called  on  him. 

H.  D.  Thoreau. 
&       &       & 

J>  / 

I  have  one  preacher  that  I  love  better  than 
any  other  on  earth;  it  is  my  little  tame  robin, 
which  preaches  to  me  daily.  I  put  his  crumbs 
upon  my  window-sill,  especially  at  night.  He 
hops  on  to  the  sill  when  he  wants  his  supply,  and 
takes  as  much  as  he  desires  to  satisfy  his  need. 
From  thence  he  always  hops  on  to  a  tree  close 
by,  and  lifts  up  his  voice  to  God  and  sings  his 
carol  of  praise  and  gratitude,  tucks  his  little 
head  under  his  wing,  and  goes  fast  to  sleep,  and 
leaves  to-morrow  to  look  after  itself.  He  is 
the  best  preacher  that  I  have  on  earth. 

Martin  Luther. 


Make  the  best  of  what  you  have.  The  fullest 
life  is  not  so  full  of  good  things  as  it  would  be 
if  it  reaped  all  the  harvest  of  good  within  its 
reach.  Our  frailty  is  in  reaching  out  toward 
the  impossible  and  distant. 

Jtnon. 


SIMPLICITY 

He  alone  is  a  man  who  can  resist  the  genius 
of  the  age,  the  tone  of  fashion,  with  vigorous 
simplicity  and  modest  courage. 

Lavater. 

The  simple  life  means  the  life  that  reflects  the 
fundamental  things,  that  expresses  the  structural 
facts  of  human  society.  Now  what  is  more 
fundamental,  in  regard  to  my  relations  to  others, 
than  the  idea  that  others  are  worthy,  that  they 
have  fundamentally  the  same  worth  that  we  have? 
How,  then,  can  I  feel  at  ease,  if  society  around 
me  is  such  that  vast  numbers  of  others,  of  whom 
I  feel  in  my  heart  that  they  are  entitled  to  the 
same  advantages  that  I  enjoy,  are  deprived  of 
them?  If  society  is  so  constituted  that  eight- 
tenths  are  in  a  position,  not  only  of  physical 
disadvantage,  but  often  of  serious  moral  peril, 
and  at  any  rate,  at  intellectual  disadvantage,  how 
can  I  say  to  myself:  I  am  going  to  enter  into  the 
true  life,  and  not  pay  any  attention  to  this  funda- 
mental discord. 

Felix  Jtdler. 


Happy  he  whom  neither  wealth  nor  fashion, 
Nor  the  march  of  the  encroaching  city, 

Drives  an  exile 
From  the  hearth  of  his  ancestral  homestead. 

Longfellow. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


One  of  the  chief  dangers  of  life  is  trusting 
occasions.  We  think  that  conspicuous  events, 
striking  experiences,  exalted  moments,  have  most 
to  do  with  our  character  and  capacity.  We  are 
wrong.  Common  days,  monotonous  hours,  weari- 
some paths,  plain  old  tools,  and  .  every-day 
clothes  tell  the  real  story.  Good  habits  are  not 
made  on  birthdays,  nor  Christian  character  at  the 
new  year.  The  vision  may  dawn,  the  dream  may 
waken,  the  heart  may  leap  with  a  new  inspira- 
tion on  some  mountain-top,  but  the  test,  the 
triumph,  is  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  on  the 
level  plain. 

The  workshop  of  character  is  every-day  life. 
The  uneventful  and  commonplace  hour  is  where 
the  battle  is  won  or  lost.  Thank  God  for  a  new 
truth,  a  beautiful  idea,  a  glowing  experience: 
but  remember  that  unless  we  bring  it  down  to 
the  ground  and  teach  it  to  walk  with  feet,  work 
with  hands,  and  stand  the  strain  of  daily  life,  we 
have  worse  than  lost  it,  we  have  been  hurt  by 
it.  A  new  light  in  our  heart  makes  an  occasion; 
but  an  occasion  is  an  opportunity,  not  for  build- 
ing a  tabernacle  and  feeling  thankful  and  looking 
back  to  a  blessed  memory,  but  for  shedding  the 
new  light  on  the  old  path,  and  doing  old  duties 
with  new  inspiration.  The  uncommon  life  is  the 
child  of  the  common  day,  lived  in  an  uncommon 
way. 

Maltbie  Davenport  Babcock. 
92 


SIMPLICITY 


She  has  a  world  of  ready  wealth, 
Our  minds  and  hearts  to  bless  — 

Spontaneous  wisdom  breathed  by  health, 
Truth  breathed  by  cheerfulness. 

One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 
May  teach  you  more  of  man, 

Of  moral  evil  and  of  good, 
Than  all  the  sages  can. 


Sweet  is  the  lore  which  Nature  brings; 

Our  meddling  intellect 
Misshapes  the  beauteous  forms  of  things :  — 

We  murder  to  dissect. 

Enough  of  Science  and  of  Art; 

Close  up  these  barren  leaves; 
Come  forth,  and  bring  with  you  a  heart 

That  watches  and  receives. 

William  Wordsworth. 


We  are  all  acquainted  with  people  who  have 
a  rage  for  being  abroad,  who  think  the  world 
would  no  longer  go  round  if  they  didn't  figure 
on  all  sides  of  it.  To  stay  at  home  is  penal; 
there  they  cease  to  be  in  view.  A  horror  of  home 
life  possesses  them  to  such  a  degree  that  they 
would  rather  pay  to  be  bored  outside  than  be 
amused  gratuitously  within. 

Charles  Wagner. 


Simplicity  is  the  model  of  expression  which  is 
inseparable  from  a  truth-loving  nature.  Ostenta- 
tion and  love  of  display  indicate  some  com- 
plexity of  motive  or  some  obliquity  of  spirit. 
Plainness  of  manner  bears  witness  to  single- 
ness of  heart.  The  man  who  exalts  truth  above 
all  things  moves  directly  to  his  object.  He 
selects  his  words  not  for  the  purpose  of  adorn- 
ing thought,  but  for  the  purpose  of  giving  it 
precise  expression.  He  determines  upon  his 
actions  not  with  a  view  of  impressing  men,  but 
with  the  object  of  fulfilling  the  impulses  of  his 
heart.  In  dealing  with  such  a  nature  one  does 
well  to  stand  on  the  firm  ground  of  sincerity,  to 
discard  all  the  devices  of  artfulness,  and  find 
strength  in  quietness  and  confidence. 

Mnon. 


Men  are  burdened  with  doing.  They  must 
do  this  and  that;  and  the  day  is  too  short  for 
the  works  of  the  day,  and  there  are  not  enough 
days  in  the  year  to  finish  the  tasks  appointed. 
Men  and  women  are  always  hurrying,  always 
worrying,  always  under  pressure  of  so-called 
duties.  But  the  apostle  simplified  the  problem 
of  life  amazingly  when  he  said,  "  This  one  thing 
I  do."  He  selected  the  highest,  the  chief  thing, 
and  gave  to  that  his  whole  life. 

Jtnon. 


SIMPLICITY 


Whenever  life  is  simple  and  sane,  true  pleasure 
accompanies  it  as  fragrance  does  uncultivated 
flowers. 

Charles  Wagner. 

~    ~    * 

The  crying  need  of  the  pulpit  to-day,  we  can- 
not but  feel,  is  a  simple  directness.  Some  one 
notes  that  the  true  laws  of  eloquence  are,  first, 
to  have  something  to  say,  and  secondly  to  say 
it.  To  say  it  plainly,  to  say  it  attractively!  And 
this  is  style.  To  be  clear,  to  be  fresh,  to  abhor 
the  vague,  to  keep  wide  of  the  moloch  of  indefi- 
niteness,  to  know  what  is  mist  and  maze  as  well 
as  what  is  rock  and  river!  It  is  not  possible  to 
see  six  inches  into  the  depths  of  a  puddle,  but 
one  can  look  down  twenty  fathoms  into  the 
waters  that  wash  the  shores  of  Catalina  Island. 

Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 


*ET  *sr  «e^ 

OUR   FRIEND 

I  know  not  whether  she  be  fair, 

If  blue  her  eyes  or  gold  her  hair; 

I  have  not  marked  her  features  well  — 

Her  spirit  casts  too  strong  a  spell. 

Even  in  wintry  frost  and  sleet, 
If  one  but  pass  her  on  the  street, 

95 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Though  all  the  town  be  wrapp'd  in  furs, 
A  sense  of  warmth  and  April  stirs. 

Her  lips  may  be  as  soft  as  those 
The  bee  is  proffered  by  the  rose  — 
I  do  not  know;    but  this  I'm  sure: 
They   smile  alike   on   rich  and   poor. 

Her  ear  may  be  so  fine  a  fleck 
It  scarce  casts  shadow  on  her  neck; 
I  only  know  'tis  not  too  small 
To  listen  when  the  needy  call. 

I  know  not  if  her  hand  be  white, 
Or  if  her  foot  be  arched  and  slight; 
Her  feet  will  run  to  carry  aid, 
Her  hand  shower  blessings  unrepaid. 

If  she  should  die,  some  brush  might  trace 
The  maiden's  comeliness  or  grace; 
But  most  could  only  strive,  ah  yes, 
Somehow  to  fill  the  loneliness. 

Frederic  Lawrence  I^nowlei. 


Ornament  is  but  the  gilded  shore 
To  a  most  dangerous  sea;   the  beauteous  scarf 
Veiling  an  Indian  beauty;    in  a  word, 
The  seeming  truth  which  cunning  times  put  on 
To  entrap  the  wisest. 

Shakespeare. 

96 


SIMPLICITY 


The  Architect  of  the  universe,  by  whom  all 
things  were  created,  when  for  love's  sake  He 
became  a  man,  made  ploughs  and  yokes.  The 
loftiest  soul  did  lowliest  work.  Hard  hands  be- 
longed to  the  gentlest  heart.  The  Son  of  God 
would  not  have  an  exceptional  lot,  but  a  com- 
mon one.  He  must  know  how  most  men  feel, 
and  so  He  became  a  wage-earner  and  a  day- 
labourer. 

Maltble  Davenport  Babcock. 


Livery  counts  for  nothing:  we  must  see  the 
heart.  No  class  has  the  prerogative  of  simplicity; 
no  dress,  however  humble  in  appearance,  is  its 
unfailing  badge.  Its  dwelling  need  not  be  a 
garret,  a  hut,  the  cell  of  the  ascetic  nor  the 
lowliest  fisherman's  bark. 

Charles  Wagner. 
&        &       & 

Truth  needs  no  colour,  .  .  .  beauty  no  pencil. 

Shakespeare. 


' 


Simplicity  is  favourable  to  law. 

J.  Jk.  Spencer. 

&       &       £? 

A  childlike  mind  in  its  simplicity  practises  that 
science  of  good  to  which  the  wise  may  be  blind. 

Schiller. 

97 


THE  VALUE  OF 


Come  live  with  me  and  be  my  Love, 
And  we  will  all  the  pleasures  prove 
That  hills  and  valleys,  dale  and  field, 
And  all  the  craggy  mountains  yield. 

There  will  we  sit  upon  the  rocks 
And  see  the  shepherds  feed  their  flocks, 
By  shallow  rivers,  to  whose  falls 
Melodious  birds  sing  madrigals. 


There  will  I  make  thee  beds  of  roses 
And  a  thousand  fragrant  posies, 
A  cap  of  flowers,  and  a  kirtle 
Embroider'd  all  with  leaves  of  myrtle. 


A  gown  made  of  the  finest  wool, 
Which  from  our  pretty  lambs  we  pull, 
Fair  lined  slippers  for  the  cold, 
With  buckles  of  the  purest  gold. 

^^^^^ 

A  belt  of  straw  and  ivy  buds 

With  coral  clasps  and  amber  studs: 
And  if  these  pleasures  may  thee  move, 
Come  live  with  me  and  be  my  Love. 

Thy  silver  dishes  for  thy  meat 
As  precious  as  the  gods  do  eat, 
Shall  on  an  ivory  table  be 
Prepared  each  day  for  thee  and  me. 
98 


SIMPLICITY 


The  shepherd  swains  shall  dance  and  sing 
For   thy   delight   each    May-morning: 
If  these  delights  thy  mind  may  move, 
Then  live  with  me  and  be  my  Love. 

C.  Mario 


*        * 


Am  I  acting  in  simplicity,  from  a  germ  of  the 
divine  life  within,  or  am  I  shaping  my  path  to 
obtain  some  immediate  result  of  expediency? 
Am  I  endeavouring  to  compass  effects,  amidst  a 
tangled  web  of  foreign  influences  I  cannot  cal- 
culate; or  am  I  seeking  simply  to  do  what  is 
right,  and  leaving  the  consequences  to  the  good 
providence  of  God? 

M .  Jt.  Schimmelpenninck. 


To  maintain  one's  self  on  this  earth  is  not  a 
hardship,  but  a  pastime,  if  one  will  live  simply 
and  wisely. 


Now  the  pulpit  and  the  mart 
Make  an  unquiet  thing  of  Art, 
For  we  trade  or  else  we  preach; 


Even  the  crocus,  'stead  of  song, 
Serves  for  text  the  April  long; 
Thus  we  set  it  out  of  reach. 


Lizette  Woodworth  Reese. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

If  simplicity  of  heart  is  an  essential  condition 
of  respect,  simplicity  of  life  is  its  best  school. 
Whatever  be  the  state  of  your  fortune,  avoid 
everything  which  could  make  your  children 
think  themselves  more  or  better  than  others. 
Though  your  wealth  would  permit  you  to  dress 
them  richly,  remember  the  evil  you  might  do  in 
exciting  their  vanity.  Preserve  them  from  the 
evil  of  believing  that  to  be  elegantly  dressed 
suffices  for  distinction,  and  above  all  do  not 
carelessly  increase  by  their  clothes  and  their 
habits  of  life  the  distance  which  already  sepa- 
rates them  from  other  children:  dress  them 
simply. 

Charles  Wagner. 


The  expression  of  truth  is  simplicity. 


Seneca.. 


The  secret  of  all  true  greatness  is  simplicity. 

William  George  Jordan. 


Have  the  courage  to  be  ignorant  of  a  great 
number  of  things  in  order  to  avoid  the  calamity 
of  being  ignorant  of  everything. 

Sydney  Smith. 
&        &        & 

An  honest  tale  speeds  best,  being  plainly  tol< 


Shakespeare. 


TOO 


SIMPLICITY 


Simplicity  is  the  sun  of  a  self-centred  and 
pure  life,  —  the  secret  of  any  specific  greatness 
in  the  life  of  the  individual. 

William.   George  Jordan. 


The  bed  was  made,  the  room  was  fit, 
By  punctual  eve  the  stars  were  lit; 
The  air  was  still,  the  water  ran, 
No  need  was  there  for  maid  or  man, 
When  we  put  up,  my  ass  and  I, 
At  God's  green  caravanserai. 

R.  L.  Stevenson 


True  humour  lies  in  the  thought,  and  arises 
rom  the  representation  of  images  in  odd  circum- 
stances and  uncommon  lights.  A  pleasant 
thought  strikes  us  by  the  force  of  its  natural 
beauty:  and  the  mirth  of  it  is  generally  rather 
palled  than  heightened  by  that  ridiculous  phrase- 
ology which  is  so  much  in  fashion  among  the 
pretenders  to  humour  and  pleasantry.  This  tribe 
of  men  are  like  our  mountebanks;  they  make  a 
man  a  wit,  by  putting  him  in  a  fantastic  habit. 
Our  little  burlesque  authors,  who  are  the  delight 
of  ordinary  readers,  generally  abound  in  these 
pert  phrases,  which  have  in  them  more  vivacity 
than  wit. 

The  Spectator. 

IOI 


THE  VALUE  OF 

To  be  honest,  to  be  kind,  to  earn  a  little  and 
spend  a  little  less;  to  make  upon  the  whole  a 
family  happier  by  his  presence;  to  renounce 
when  that  shall  be  necessary  and  not  be  embit- 
tered; to  keep  a  few  friends,  but  these  without 
capitulation  —  above  all,  on  the  same  grim  con- 
dition to  keep  friends  with  himself  —  here  is  a 
task  for  all  that  a  man  has  of  fortitude  and 
delicacy. 

R.  L.  Stevenson. 


That  temperance  and  sobriety  are  the  best 
guardians  of  health  is  an  old  story.  They  spare 
him  who  observes  them  many  a  misery  that 
saddens  existence;  they  ensure  him  health,  love 
of  action,  mental  poise.  Whether  it  be  a  ques- 
tion of  food,  dress,  or  dwelling,  simplicity  of 
taste  is  also  a  source  of  independence  and  safety. 

Charles  Wagner. 


What  a  happy  simplicity  prevailed  in  ancient 
times  when  it  was  the  custom  for  ladies,  though 
of  the  greatest  distinction,  to  employ  themselves 
in  useful  and  laborious  works. 

C.   B.   Buck. 


How  many  undervalue  the  power  of  simplicity! 
But  it  is  the  real  key  to  the  heart. 

William  Wordsworth. 

102 


tffl 


SIMPLICITY 

O  Friend!     I  know  not  which  way  I  must  look 

For  comfort,  being,  as  I  am,  opprest 

To  think  that  now  our  life  is  only  drest 

For  show;    mean  handiwork  of  craftsman,  cook, 

Or  groom !  —  We  must  run  glittering  like  a  brook 
In  the  open  sunshine,  or  we  are  unblest; 
The  wealthiest  man  among  us  is  the  best: 
No  grandeur  now  in  Nature  or  in  book 

Delights   us.     Rapine,  avarice,   expense, 
This  is  idolatry;    and  these  we  adore: 
Plain  living  and  high  thinking  are  no  more: 

The  homely  beauty  of  the  good  old  cause 
Is  gone;   our  peace,  our  fearful  innocence. 
And  pure  religion  breathing  household  laws. 

William  Wordsworth. 


In  the  downhill  of  life,  when  I  find  I'm  declining, 

May  my  lot  no  less  fortunate  be 
Than  a  snug  elbow-chair  can  afford  for  reclining, 

And  a  cot  that  o'erlooks  the  wide  sea; 
With  an  ambling  pad-pony  to  pace  o'er  the  lawn, 

While  I  carol  away  idle  sorrow, 
And  blithe  as   the  lark  that  each  day  hails  the 
dawn 

Look  forward  with  hope  for  to-morrow. 

Collins. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Certainly,  in  our  own  little  sphere  it  is  not 
the  most  active  people  to  whom  we  owe  the 
most.  Among  the  common  people  whom  we 
know,  it  is  not  necessarily  those  who  are  busiest, 
not  those  who,  meteorlike,  are  ever  on  the  rush 
after  some  visible  charge  and  work.  It  is  the 
lives,  like  the  stars,  which  simply  pour  down  on 
us  the  calm  light  of  their  bright  and  faithful 
being,  up  to  which  we  look  and  out  of  which 
we  gather  the  deepest  calm  and  courage. 

Phillips  Brooks. 


The  simple  life  is  that  which  is  directed  toward 
the  attainment  of  things  that  are  essential. 

Felix  Jtdler. 


True  worth  is  in  being,  not  seeming, 
In  doing  each  day  that  goes  by 

Some  little  good,  —  not  in  the  dreaming 
Of  great  things  to  do  by  and  by. 


Jtlice  Gary. 


£? 


One  of  the  signs  of  the  simplicity  of  culture 
is  its  freshness  of  feeling.  It  invests  the  most 
familiar  objects  with  interest  and  newness,  being 
in  this  regard  the  opposite  pole  of  criticism.  It  is 
positive,  not  negative;  active,  not  passive. 

Malcolm  J .  McLeod. 

104 


SIMPLICITY 

If  we  kept  our  principle  of  joy  in  work  con- 
sistently in  view  we  would  not  set  ourselves 
tasks  that  lay  beyond  the  possibilities  of  joy, 
This  is  our  first  mistake.  We  plan  book  covers 
and  carvings  which  are  too  elaborate  to  be  com- 
pleted in  joy.  They  become  mechanical  in  char- 
acter. They  become  exclusively  the  possession  of 
one  person  or  a  few  persons.  They  do  not  seem 
to  make  the  democratic  appeal.  But  this  is  not 
our  worst  fault.  I  am  convinced  that  even  elab- 
orate things  may  be  possible  both  for  workers 
and  possessors  if  we  insist  upon  producing  them 
by  simple  methods.  We  overfinish  everything. 
We  do  not  know  where  to  stop.  We  are  afraid 
comparison  with  the  finish  of  the  machine. 

Will  Price. 


True  elegance  becomes  the  more  so  as  it  ap- 
proaches simplicity. 

Beecher. 


The  more  simply  you  live,  the  more  secure  is 
your  future;  you  are  less  at  the  mercy  of  sur- 
prises and  reverses.  An  illness  or  a  period  of 
idleness  does  not  suffice  to  dispossess  you:  a 
change  of  position,  even  considerable,  does  not 
put  you  to  confusion. 

Charles  Wagner. 

105 


THE  VALUE  OF 

:e  the  wretch  that  long  has  tost 

On  the  thorny  bed  of  pain, 
At  length  repair  his  vigour  lost 

And  breathe  and  walk  again: 
The  meanest  floweret  of  the  vale, 
The  simplest  note  that  swells  the  gale, 
The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 

J 


To  him  are  opening  Paradise. 


,  ~ ..<* 

Genuine   simplicity 
cementing  principle. 


Thomas  Gray. 


of   heart   is   a  healing   and 


Burke. 


Give   me   for  marriage   a  sweet-breath'd   woman 

of  whom  I  should  never  tire, 
Give    me   a   perfect    child,   give   me   away    aside 

from  the  noise  of  the  world  a  rural  domestic 

life, 
Give   me    to   warble    spontaneous   songs    recluse 

by  myself,  for  my  own  ears  only, 
Give  me  solitude,  give  me  Nature,  give  me  again, 

O   Nature,  your  primal  sanities! 

Walt  Whitman. 


Simplicity  in  a  character  is  like  the  needle  of  a 
compass,  —  it  knows  only  one   point,  its   North, 

its  ideal. 

^B^HT  ^~^^F^^^~\  f^^^    ^k 

William  George  Jordan. 
1 06 


SIMPLICITY 


Life  is  not  a  deep,  profound,  perplexing  problem. 
It  is  a  simple,  easy  lesson,  such  as  any  child 
may  read.  You  cannot  find  its  solution  in  the 
ponderous  tomes  of  the  old  fathers,  the  philoso- 
phers, the  theorists.  It  is  not  on  your  book- 
shelves, but  in  the  warmest  corner  of  the  most 
unlettered  heart  it  glows  in  letters  that  the 
blindest  may  read,  a  sweet,  plain,  simple,  easy, 
loving  lesson.  And  when  you  have  learned  it, 
brother  of  mine,  the  world  will  be  better  and 
happier. 


R.  J.  Bardette. 
&       &       & 

Simplify,  simplify.  Instead  of  three  meals  a 
day,  if  it  be  necessary  eat  but  one;  instead  of  a 
hundred  dishes,  five;  and  reduce  other  things 
in  proportion.  „  D  Thoreau 

*      *      * 

Yes!  the  faithful  dog  that  asks  for  our  sym- 
pathetic pat  upon  its  head;  the  child  that  nestles 
in  your  lap;  the  man  whose  arm  lovingly  sus- 
tains you;  the  woman  whose  lips  are  graciously 
tendered  you  to  kiss  —  these  little  threads  of 
celestial  origin  weave  for  us  heavenly  garments, 
and  our  dear,  earthly  loves  become  celestial  by 
ways  beyond  our  understanding.  God's  own  love 
comes  to  us  through  the  lowliest  door,  and  the 
arms  of  the  Eternal  embrace  us  in  the  babe's 
clasp. 

Jenkin  Lloyd  Jones. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


How  happy  is  he  born  and  taught 
That  serveth  not  another's  will; 

Whose  armour  is  his  honest  thought 
And  simple  truth  his  utmost  ski 

Whose  passions  not  his  masters  are, 
Whose  soul  is  still  prepared  for  death, 

Not  tied  unto  the  world  with  care 
Of  public  fame,  or  private  breath; 

Who  envies  none  that  chance  doth  raise 
Or  vice;  who  never  understood 

How  deepest  wounds  are  given  by  praise; 
Nor  rules  of  state,  but  rules  of  good: 

Who  hath  his  life  from  rumours  freed, 
Whose  conscience  is  his  strong  retreat; 

Whose  state  can  neither  flatterers  feed, 
Nor  ruin  make  accusers  great; 

Who  God  doth  late  and  early  pray 
More  of  His  grace  than  gifts  to  lend;; 

And  entertains  the  harmless  day 
With  a  well-chosen  book  or  friend; 

This  man  is  freed  from  servile  bands 

Of  hope  to  rise,  or  fear  to  fall; 
Lord  of  himself,  though  not  of  lands; 

And  having  nothing,  yet  hath  all. 

Sir  H.    Wotton. 

1 08 


SIMPLICITY 


Speech  is  the  chief  revelation  of  the  mind,  the 
first  visible  form  that  it  takes.  As  the  thought, 
so  the  speech.  To  better  one's  life  in  the  way  of 
simplicity,  one  must  set  a  watch  on  his  lips  and 
his  pen.  Let  the  word  be  as  genuine  as  the 
thought,  as  artless,  as  valid:  think  justly,  speak 
frankly. 

Charles  Wagner. 


What  was  the  secret  of  such  a  one's  power? 
What  had  she  done?  Absolutely  nothing;  but 
radiant  smiles,  beaming  good-humour,  the  tact 
of  divining  what  every  one  felt  and  every  one 
wanted,  told  that  she  had  got  out  of  self  and 
learned  to  think  of  others;  so  that  at  one  time 
it  showed  itself  in  deprecating  the  quarrel,  which 
lowering  brows  and  raised  tones  already  showed 
to  be  impending,  by  sweet  words;  at  another, 
by  smoothing  an  invalid's  pillow;  at  another,  by 
soothing  a  sobbing  child;  at  another,  by  humour- 
ing and  softening  a  father  who  had  returned 
weary  and  ill-tempered  from  the  irritating  cares 
of  business.  None  but  she  saw  those  things. 
None  but  a  loving  heart  could  see  them.  That 
was  the  secret  of  her  heavenly  power.  The  one 
who  will  be  found  in  trial  capable  of  great  acts 
of  love,  is  ever  the  one  who  is  always  doing  con- 
siderate small  ones. 

F.    W.   Robertson. 
109 


THE  VALUE  OF 


As  inward  love  breeds  outward  talk, 
The  hound  some  praise,  and  some  the  hawk 
Some,  better  pleased  with  private  sport, 
Use  tennis;   some  a  mistress  court: 

But  these  delights  I  neither  wish 

Nor  envy,  while  I  freely  fish. 


Who  hunts,  doth  oft  in  danger  ride; 

Who  hawks,  lures  oft  both  far  and  wide; 

Who  uses  games  shall  often  prove 

A  loser;   but  who  falls  in  love 
Is  fetter'd  in  fond  Cupid's  snare: 
My  angle  breeds  me  no  such  care. 


Of  recreation  there  is  none 
So  free  as  fishing  is  alone; 
All  other  pastimes  do  no  less 
Than  mind  and  body  both  possess; 

My  hand  alone  my  work  can  do 

So  I  can  fish  and  study  too. 

I  care  not,  I,  to  fish  in  seas  — 
Fresh  rivers  best  my  mind  do  please, 
Whose  sweet  calm  course  I  contemplate, 
And  seek  in  life  to  imitate: 
In  civil  bounds  I  fain  would  keep, 
And  for  my  past  offences  weep. 


And  when  the  timorous  trout  I  wai 
To  take,  and  he  devours  my  bait, 


How  poor  a  thing,  sometimes  I  find, 

Will  captivate  a  greedy  mind; 
And  when  none  bite,  I  praise  the  wise, 
Whom  vain  allurements  ne'er  surprise. 


gPvv* 


Izaak  Walton. 


Scarce  had  he  need  to  cast  his  pride  or  slough  the 

dross  of  earth ; , 
E'en  as  he  trod  that  day  to  God,  so  walked  he 

from  his  birth  — 
In   simpleness   and    gentleness   and   honour   and 

clean  mirth. 

Rudyard  tripling. 


Simplicity  should  be  free,  natural,  spontaneous, 
bubbling,  artesian.  It  should  not  be  negative;  it 
should  be  positive.  It  should  not  be  critical;  it 
should  be  creative.  It  should  not  embitter  char- 
acter; it  should  mellow  it. 

Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 


jm     *&£isa*   II 

The  best  painters,  as  they  progress  in  reputa- 
tion and  toward  perfection,  are  found  to  dis- 
pense more  and  more  with  the  technique  of  the 
art,  for  simpler  methods.  Simplicity  never  fails 
to  charm. 


in 


THE  VALUE  OF 

To  do  Thy  will  is  more  than  praise, 

As  words  are  less  than  deeds, 
And  simple  trust  can  find  Thy  ways 

We  miss  with  chart  of  creeds. 

J.   G.    Whittier. 


9 


The  consciousness  of  being  well  dressed  and 
yet  owing  for  it,  of  riding  in  carriages  which 
one  cannot  afford,  of  wearing  jewelry  and 
tailor-made  suits  which  are  beyond  one's  means, 
or  of  patronizing  expensive  hotels  and  restaurants 
which  one  cannot  by  any  stretch  of  imagination 
or  sophistry  afford,  is  destructive  to  self-respect, 
to  truth  and  honesty,  and  to  manhood  and 
womanhood.  You  cannot  afford  to  wear  lies  on 
your  body  or  eat  lies  at  expensive  cafes  any  more 
than  you  can  afford  to  tell  lies  with  your  tongue. 

Orison  S.  Warden. 


It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree 
In  bulk,  doth  make  Man  better  be; 
Or  standing  long  an  oak,  three  hundred  year, 
To  fall  a  log  at  last,  dry,  bald,  and  sere: 
A  lily  of  a  day 
Is  fairer  far  in  May, 
Although  it  fall  and  die  that  night  — 
It  was  the  plant  and  flower  of  Light. 
In  small  proportions  we  just  beauties  see; 
And  in  short  measures  life  may  perfect  be. 

B.  jonson. 
112 


SIMPLICITY 

It  was  the  fashion  in  the  political  economy  of 
a  past  day  to  encourage  all  sorts  of  extravagance; 
the  proceeds  of  expenditures  thus  wasted,  it  was 
claimed,  going  toward  the  prosperity  of  less 
favoured  classes.  To-day,  it  is  distinctly  under- 
stood that  what  one  wastes  some  other  must  lose. 
The  engrossment  of  the  products  of  labour  by 
one  person  is  almost  as  much  a  loss  in  the 
scheme  of  a  scientific  distribution  as  is  the  going 
down  of  a  ship  at  sea  carrying  with  it  gold  coin 
that  has  cost  the  labour  of  half  a  million  workers. 

If  you  would  lead  "  the  simple  life  "  you  must 
therefore  begin  by  living  in  a  house  commensurate 
with  your  needs  —  by  taking  up  of  the  earth's 
surface  such  share  as  will  not  compel  the  hud- 
dling together  of  your  brothers.  You  must  be 
reasonable  in  all  your  bodily  desires. 

John  Brisben  Walker. 


I  saw  her  upon  nearer  view, 

A  spirit,  yet  a  woman  too! 

Her  household  motions  light  and  free, 

And  steps  of  virgin-liberty; 

A  countenance  in  which  did  meet 

Sweet  records,  promises  as  sweet; 

A  creature  not  too  bright  or  good 

For  human  nature's  daily  food, 

For  transient  sorrows,  simple  wiles, 

Praise,  blame,  love,  kisses,  tears,  and  smiles. 

William  Wordsworth. 
"3 


THE  VALUE  OF 


The  sad  face  of  the  man  who  has  too  much 
work  of  one  kind  is  only  equalled  by  the  worried 
face  of  a  man  out  of  a  job.  When  life  means 
much  to  us;  when  we  love  the  man  at  the  next 
bench;  when  we  care  what  our  work  stands  for 
and  hope  to  see  it  produce  joy  to  the  final  user 
or  possessor;  when  we  see  the  merit  in  another's 
work  and  try  to  excel  it;  when  we  are  not  con- 
cerned about  becoming  rich,  or  in  hoarding 
things,  or  even  to  gain  applause,  but  are  con- 
cerned only  to  please  ourselves,  concerned  only  to 
find  our  work  and  to  do  it,  then  the  craftsman  is 
born,  then  the  spirit  of  the  craftsman  is  en- 
franchised. 

Percival  Wiksell. 


If  our  merchants  did  not  most  of  them  fail,  and 
the  banks,  too,  my  faith  in  the  old  laws  of  the 
world  would  be  staggered.  The  statement  that 
ninety-six  in  a  hundred  doing  such  business 
surely  break  down,  is  perhaps  the  sweetest  fact 
that  statistics  have  revealed  —  exhilarating  as  the 
fragrance  of  the  flowers  in  the  spring.  Does  it 
not  say  somewhere,  "  The  Lord  reigneth,  let  the 
earth  rejoice  "  ?  If  thousands  are  thrown  out  of 
employment,  it  suggests  that  they  were  not  well 
employed.  Why  don't  they  take  the  hint?  It 
is  not  enough  to  be  industrious;  so  are  the  ants. 
What  are  you  industrious  about? 

H .  Z>.   Thoreau. 
114 


SIMPLICITY 


Revelations  of  his  own  soul,  of  God's  intimate 
presence,  of  the  grandeur  of  the  creation,  of  the 
glory  of  disinterestedness,  of  the  deformity  of 
wrong-doing,  of  the  dignity  of  universal  justice, 
of  the  might  of  moral  principle,  of  the  immuta- 
bleness  of  truth,  of  immortality,  and  of  the  in- 
ward sources  of  happiness;  these  revelations, 
awakening  a  thirst  for  something  higher  than 
he  is  or  has,  come  of  themselves  to  an  humble, 
self-improving  man.  Sometimes  a  common  scene 
in  nature,  one  of  the  common  relations  of  life, 
will  open  itself  to  us  with  a  brightness  and  preg- 
nancy of  meaning  unknown  before.  Sometimes  a 
thought  of  this  kind  forms  an  era  in  life.  It 
changes  the  whole  future  course.  It  is  a  new 
creation.  And  these  great  ideas  are  not  con- 
fined to  men  of  any  class.  They  are  communica- 
tions of  the  Infinite  Mind  to  all  minds  which  are 
open  to  their  reception;  and  labour  is  a  far 
better  condition  for  their  reception  than  luxuri- 
ous or  fashionable  life.  It  is  even  better  than  a 
studious  life,  when  this  fosters  vanity,  pride,  and 
the  spirit  of  jealous  competition.  A  childlike 
simplicity  attracts  these  revelations  more  than  a 
selfish  culture  of  intellect,  however  far  extended. 

William  Ellery  Channing. 
~       ~       <* 

If  we  stay  at  home  and  mind  our  business,  who 
will  want  railroads?  We  do  not  ride  on  the 
railroad;  it  rides  upon  us. 

"5 


H.    D.   Thoreau. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

To  give  up  the  ancestral  hearth,  to  let  the 
family  traditions  fall  into  desuetude,  to  abandon 
the  simple  domestic  customs,  for  whatever  return, 
is  to  make  a  fool's  bargain;  and  such  is  the 
place  in  society  of  family  life,  that  if  this  be 
impoverished,  the  trouble  is  felt  throughout  the 
whole  social  organism. 

Charles  Wagner. 


Ill  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey, 
Where  wealth  accumulates,  and  men  decay: 
Princes  and  lords  may  flourish,  or  may  fade; 
A  breath  can  make  them,  as  a  breath  has  made: 
But  a  bold  peasantry,  their  country's  pride, 
When  once  destroyed,  can  never  be  supplied. 

Oliver  Goldsmith. 

&        &         £? 

Culture  is  the  human  soul  grown  ripe.  It  is 
the  complete  nature  at  its  richest,  fully  unfolded, 
evenly  balanced,  wisely  directed,  adjusted.  The 
cultured  life  is  the  trained  life,  the  finished  life, 
but  ever  and  everywhere  the  simple  life. 

Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 


Be  sure  if  you  do  your  very  best  in  that  which 
is  laid  upon  you  daily  you  will  not  be  left  with- 
out help  when  some  mightier  occasion  arises. 

Jean  Alicolas  Grou. 

116 


SIMPLICITY 

If  a  man  has  anything  to  say  or  do,  it  drops 
from  him  simply  and  directly,  as  a  stone  falls 
to  the  ground.  There  are  no  two  ways  about  it, 
but  down  it  comes. 

H.   D.   Thoreau. 
&        ^        & 

Like  the  star 

That   shines   afar, 

Without  haste 

And  without  rest, 

Let  each  man  wheel,  with  steady  sway, 

Round  the  task  that  rules  the  day, 

And  do  his  best. 

Goethe. 


In  the  midst  of  our  artifice  and  hypocrisy, 
Jesus  points  us  to  the  little  children,  and  exhorts 
us  to  be  true.  In  the  midst  of  our  self-dissection 
and  self-contemplation,  Jesus  calls  us  to  be 
natural,  unaffected,  simple,  and  sincere.  In  the 
midst  of  our  half-heartedness,  Jesus  bids  us  to  be 
whole.  In  the  midst  of  our  vanity,  Jesus  tells  us 
to  look  around,  and  with  a  wondering  childlike 
gaze  forget  ourselves  in  all  the  marvels  of  this 
God-filled  world.  How  shall  we  turn  yet  once 
again  and  become  like  little  children?  .  .  .  Let 
but  the  sweet  remembrance  of  your  purer  days 
work  their  own  way  within  you.  Let  the  bright 
face  of  childhood  preach  its  own  expressive  ser- 
mon to  your  soul. 

E.  M.  Geldart. 
117 


THE  VALUE  OF 


My  daily  task,  whatever  it  be,  that  is  what 
mainly  educates  me.  All  other  culture  is  mere 
luxury  compared  with  what  that  gives.  That 
gives  the  Indispensables.  Yet,  fool  that  I  am, 
this  pressure  of  my  daily  task  is  the  very  thing 
that  I  so  growl  at  as  my  "Drudgery!" 

William  C.  Gannett. 


I  marvel  not  that  sadder  grows  the  world, 

For  men  have  lost  the  love  of  simple  things, 

With  eloquence  of  Nature's  music  mute, 

With  speed  of  waterways  made  bond  to  trade, 

With  stately  trees  brought  low  for  needless  heaps, 

With  flowers  forced  untimely  into  bloom,  — 

What  is  there  honest,  free,  and  fair  remaining? 

We  stifle  in  our  towns  of  prisoned  air 

And  happy  with  a  rare  glance  from  the  earth 

We  see  a  square  of  blue  or  curdled  cloud, 

Or  niggard  stretch  of  moonlight  through  a  street. 

At  manners  of  the  hill-bound  kind  we  scoff, 

Although   we   know   not   what   those   hills   have 

taught 

Of  dumb  and  deep  content  for  city's  towers. 
And  in  these  keeps  of  pain,  disease,  and  sin, 
These  wards  of  grief  whose  keys  are   our  own 

eyes, 

With  blanched  regard  we  tell  ourselves  we  live. 
O  mother  of  us  all,  from  whom  we  went 
As  early  as  our  tender  steps  were  free, 
118 


SIMPLICITY 

Whose  near  outstretch  of  arm  we  put  aside 
To  hurry  from  thy  verdant  aisles  of  peace, 
Take  us  again,  us  sick  with  thought  or  craft, 
And  lull  us  with  thy  choirs  of  careless  birds. 

Philip  Becker  Goetz. 


Blest  be  those  feasts,  with  simple  plenty  crown'd, 

Where  all  the  ruddy  family  around 

Laugh  at  the  jests  or  pranks  that  never  fail, 

Or  sigh  with  pity  at  some  mournful  tale; 

Or  press  the  bashful  stranger  to  his  food, 

And  learn  the  luxury  of  doing  good. 

Oliver  Goldsmith. 


Simplicity  is  not  sour,  or  gloomy.  Simplicity 
does  not  wish  us  to  disrobe  ourselves  of  all  the 
fine  array  of  civilization.  It  only  demands  that 
we  try  to  keep  in  mind  the  things  which  really 
make  for  our  best  welfare,  and  set  aside  the 
things  which  are  so  many  impediments  in  our 
way. 

Felix  Mdler. 


Far  from  the  madding  crowd's  ignoble  strife 
Their  sober  wishes  never  learn'd  to  stray;, 

Along  the  cool  sequester'd  vale  of  life 
They  kept  the  noiseless  tenor  of  their  way. 

t          Thomas  Gray. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

To  sum  up  the  necessities  of  most  men,  a  few 
concise  lines  would  answer.  Their  regime  is  in 
general  of  supreme  simplicity,  and  so  long  as 
they  follow  it,  all  is  well  with  them,  as  with 
every  obedient  child  of  Mother  Nature.  Let 
them  depart  from  it,  complications  arise,  health 
fails,  gaiety  vanishes.  Only  simple  and  natural 
living  can  keep  a  body  in  full  vigour. 

Charles  IVagner. 


Perfectly  valid  are  the  two  words  into  which 
at  the  end  of  his  book  Pastor  Wagner  condenses 
the  message  which  he  seeks  to  deliver,  the  two 
words  which  express  the  essence  of  the  simple 
life:  REMEMBER!  FORGET!  Forget  the 
things  which  at  heart  you  do  not  care  for.  Re- 
member the  things  which  you  do  care  for.  For- 
get the  accessories.  Remember  the  essentials! 

Felix  Jtdler. 


No  pure  and  simple  life,  true  to  itself,  true 
to  its  Maker,  was  ever  lived  on  this  earth,  that 
was  not  a  voice  on  God's  behalf,  however  still 
and  small;  and  that  did  not,  in  its  sincere  and 
humble  way,  declare  a  hope  and  reveal  a  faith 
which  might  well  be  the  evidence  of  things  un- 
seen. 

Alexander  Gordon. 


SIMPLICITY 

I  said  to  a  craftsman  in  New  York  last  week: 
"Why  do  you  only  do  the  very  costly  things?" 
He  replied :  "  In  order  to  meet  the  market." 
Then  I  pushed  my  inquiry  further.  "  What  are 
you  doing  to  meet  the  other,  the  larger,  market? 
The  market  of  the  people?"  Then  he  argued: 
"  I  acknowledge  that  is  my  defect.  I  had  to 
make  a  choice.  I  could  not  do  both."  "  But  do 
you  feel  that  as  a  craftsman  you  have  done  much 
until  you  have  reached  your  hands  out  both 
ways?  "  "  I  suppose  not.  There  you  are  probably 
right.  I  would  prefer  the  other  course,  but  it 
offers  me  too  many  difficulties."  That  is  just  the 
point.  I  know  the  prospect  I  open  to  my  binder 
friend  is  not  at  the  outset  a  very  alluring  one.  It 
does  not  invite  the  craftsman  to  a  bed  of  ease. 
It  means  struggle  and  a  good  many  failures.  It 
means  struggle  and  finally  means  success.  Yet 
it  is  the  only  victory  worth  while.  Any  other 
victory  is  in  the  nature  of  a  defeat. 

Horace  Traubel. 


Nothing  destroys  the  weight  of  example  as 
much  as  labour  to  make  it  striking  and  observed. 
Goodness,  to  be  interesting,  must  be  humble, 
modest,  unassuming,  not  fond  of  show,  not  wait- 
ing for  great  and  conspicuous  occasions,  but  dis- 
closing itself  without  labour  and  without  design, 
in  pious  and  benevolent  offices,  so  simple,  so 
121 


THE  VALUE  OF 


minute,  so  steady,  so  habitual,  that  they  will  carry 
a  conviction  of  the  singleness  and  purity  of  the 
heart  from  which  they  proceed.  Such  goodness 
is  never  lost.  It  glorifies  itself  by  the  very 
humility  which  encircles  it,  just  as  the  lights  of 
heaven  often  break  with  peculiar  splendour 
through  the  cloud  which  threatened  to  obscure 
them. 

William  Ellery  Charming. 


Nature  never  did  betray 
The  heart  that  loved  her;  'tis  her  privilege, 
Through  all  the  years  of  this  our  life,  to  lead 
From  joy  to  joy;  for  she  can  so  inform 
The  mind  that  is  within  us,  so  impress 
With  quietness  and  "beauty,  and  so  feed 
With  lofty  thoughts,  that  neither  evil  tongues, 
sh  judgments,  nor  the  sneers  of  selfish  men 


Shall  e'er  prevail  against  us,  or  disturb 
Our  cheerful  faith  that  all  which  we  behold 
Is  full  of  blessings. 

William  Wordsworth.. 
k  >jJ»nJ**^ 

The  charm  of  the  Indian  to  me  is  that  he  stands 
free  and  unconstrained  in  nature,  is  her  inhabitant 
and  not  her  guest,  and  wears  her  easily  and 
gracefully.  But  the  civilized  man  has  the  habits 


SIMPLICITY 


of  the  house.  His  house  is  a  prison,  in  which  he 
finds  himself  oppressed  and  confined,  not  shel- 
tered and  protected.  He  walks  as  if  he  sustained 
the  roof;  he  carries  his  arms  as  if  the  walls 
would  fall  in  and  crush  him,  and  his  feet  remem- 
ber the  cellar  beneath.  His  muscles  are  never 
relaxed.  It  is  rare  that  he  overcomes  the  house, 
and  learns  to  sit  at  home  in  it,  and  roof  and  floor 
and  walls  support  themselves,  as  the  sky  and 
trees  and  earth. 

H.  D.  Thoreau. 

£?        J&        J& 

JT  vA>* 

Simple  is  not  synonymous  with  ugly,  any  mo 
than  sumptuous,  stylish,  and  costly  are  synony- 
mous with  beautiful.  Our  eyes  are  wounded  by 
the  crying  spectacle  of  gaudy  ornament,  venal 
art  and  senseless  and  graceless  luxury.  Wealth 
coupled  with  bad  taste  sometimes  makes  us 
regret  that  so  much  money  is  in  circulation  to 
provoke  the  creation  of  such  a  prodigality  of 
horrors. 

Charles  Wagner 


Thoreau  says  that  there  is  nothing  like  manual 
labour  for  taking  the  vain  twists  and  kinks  out 
of  one's  tongue  and  wrists.  "  Learn  to  split 
wood  at  least.  Steady  labour  with  the  hands, 
which  engrosses  the  attention  also,  is  unquestion- 


THE  VALUE  OF 


ably  the  best  method  of  removing  palaver  and 
sentimentality  out  of  one's  style  both  of  speaking 
and  writing."  And  rare  as  is  the  charm  of  really 
good  manners,  it  is  most  often  1  think  to  be 
found  —  sometimes  quite  in  perfection  —  amongst 
manual  workers:  a  real  and  free  exchange  of 
human  interest,  the  art  that  ceases  to  be  art  and 
becomes  nature. 

Edward  Carpenter. 


We  overload  our  table.  The  fashion  of  dinners 
with  many  courses  is  the  outgrowth,  not  of  desire, 
nor  of  real  pleasure,  but  of  vanity  on  the  part  of 
the  hosts,  of  a  wish  to  follow  the  example  of 
others  who  have  set  this  fashion,  and  to  display 
magnificence  as  a  host,  and  not  to  fall  below  the 
accepted  standard  of  hospitality. 

These  overloaded  tables  are  an  impertinence. 
We  should  be  better  off,  physically,  morally,  and 
in  every  way,  if  our  dinners  were  less  elaborate 
than  they  are. 

Felix  Jtdler. 


I  do  not  ask  for  any  crown 

But  that  which  all  may  win, 
Nor  seek  to  conquer  any  world 

Except  the   one  within. 

Louisa  May  JHcott. 
124 


SIMPLICITY 

From    scenes    like    these, 
springs, 

That  makes  her  lov'd  at  home,  rever'd  abroad 
Princes  and  lords  are  but  the  breath  of  kings, 
"An  honest  man's  the  noblest  work  of  God;" 

And  certes,  in  fair  Virtue's  heavenly  road, 
The  cottage  leaves  the  palace  far  behind; 

What  is  a  lordling's  pomp?  a  cumbrous  load, 
Disguising  oft  the  wretch  of  human  kind, 
Studied  in  arts  of  Hell,  in  wickedness  refin'd! 

Robert  Burns. 

£?       &       & 

Hast  thou  named  all  the  birds  without  a  gun? 

Loved  the  wood-rose,  and  left  it  on  its  stalk? 

At  rich  men's  tables  eaten  bread  and  pulse? 

Unarmed,  faced  danger  with  a  heart  of  trust? 

And  loved  so  well  a  high  behaviour, 

In  man  or  maid,  that  thou  from  speech  refrained, 

Nobility  more  nobly  to  repay? 

O,  be  my  friend,  and  teach  me  to  be  thine! 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

&       &        & 

Some  one  notes  that  happiness  and  simplicity 
are  old-time  friends,  and  wiser  words  are  rarely 
spoken.  Happiness  is  found  everywhere,  but 
she  prefers  the  common  place  —  the  quiet  lane, 
the  restful  river,  the  simple  toil  and  tool  and 
task.  She  leans  rather  to  the  cottage  than  to  the 

CaStle<  Malcolm  J.  McLeod. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


For  this  is  Love's  nobility: 
Not  to  scatter  bread  and  gold, 
Goods  and  raiment,  bought  and  sold; 
But  to  hold  fast  our  simple  sense, 
And  speak  the  speech  of  innocence. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 


1MB   W 

Foppish  and  fantastic  ornaments  are  only  indi- 
cations of  vice,  not  criminal  in  themselves.  Ex- 
tinguish vanity  in  the  mind,  and  you  naturally 
retrench  the  little  superfluities  of  garniture  and 
equipage.  The  blossoms  will  fall  of  themselves, 
when  the  root  that  nourished  them  is  destroyed. 

Joseph  Mddison. 

I  weigh  not  fortune's  frown  or  smile; 

I  joy  not  much  in  earthly  joys; 
I  seek  not  state,  I  reck  not  style; 

I  am, not  fond  of  fancy's  toys: 
I  rest  so  pleased  with  what  I  have 
I  wish  no  more,  no  more  I  crave. 


I  quake  not  at  the  thunder's  crack; 

I  tremble  not  at  noise  of  war; 
I  swound  not  at  the  news  of  wrack; 

I  shrink  not  at  a  blazing  star; 

fear  not  loss,  I  hope  not  gain, 

envy  none,  I  none  disdain. 
126 


I  see  ambition  never  pleasec 
I  see  some  Tantals  starved  in  store; 

I  see  gold's  dropsy  seldom  eased; 
I  see  even  Midas  gape  for  more; 

I  neither  want  nor  yet  abound, — 

Enough's  a  feast,  content  is  crowned. 

I  feign  not  friendship  where  I  hate; 

I  fawn  not  on  the  great  (in  show) ; 
I  prize,  I  praise  a  mean  estate,  — 

Neither  too  lofty  nor  too  low: 
This,  this  is  all  my  choice,  my  cheer,  — 
A  mind  content,  a  conscience  clear. 

Joshua,  Sylvester. 


"  Is  not  this  the  carpenter? "  As  though  no 
words  of  wisdom  or  works  of  power  could  come 
from  a  carpenter!  If  Jesus  had  been  a  rabbi,  in  a 
scholar's  robe,  it  would  have  been  another  thing. 
Yes;  and  what  another  thing  for  us,  and  for  all 
the  world's  workers!  Celsus  sneered  at  the 
carpenter,  and  said  that  word  proved  he  was 
an  impostor.  How  could  God  so  demean  Him- 
self? But  the  world  has  left  Celsus  behind,  along 
with  the  critics  of  Nazareth,  and  blesses  God  for 
the  gentleness  and  comfort,  the  sympathy  and 
hope,  which  were  given  to  us  by  the  hands  of 
the  carpenter. 

It  suits  our  best  sense  that  the  one  who  spoke 
127 


THE  VALUE  OF 

of  "  putting  the  hand  to  the  plough,"  and  "  tak- 
ing the  yoke  upon  us,"  should  have  made  ploughs 
and  yokes  Himself,  and  people  do  not  think  His 
words  less  heavenly  for  not  smelling  of  books 
and  lamps.  Let  us  not  make  the  mistake  of 
those  Nazarenes.  That  Jesus  was  a  carpenter, 
was  to  them  poor  credentials  of  divinity,  but  it 
has  been  divine  credentials  to  the  poor  ever  since. 
Let  us  not  be  deceived  by  social  ratings  and 
badges  of  the  schools.  Hundreds  of  doors  are 
not  to  be  opened  by  Phi  Beta  Kappa  keys. 

Maltbie  Davenport  Babcock. 


Secure  a  good  name  to  thyself  by  living  virtu- 
ously and  humbly;  but  let  this  good  name  be 
nursed  abroad,  and  never  be  brought  home  to 
look  upon  it;  let  others  use  it  for  their  own  ad- 
vantage; let  them  speak  of  it  if  they  please;  but 
do  not  thou  use  it  at  all  but  as  an  instrument  to 
do  God  glory,  and  thy  neighbour  more  advantage. 
Let  thy  face,  like  Moses',  shine  to  others,  but 
make  no  looking-glass  for  thyself. 

Jeremy  Taylor. 

&        £?        £? 

A  true  perception  of  the  Gospel  is  the  entire 
forgetfulness  of  self:  utter  absence  of  any  pre- 
tension, and  the  complete  and  entire  refusal  to 
accept  the  world's  praise  or  judgment. 

General  Gordon. 

128 


SIMPLICITY 

I  suspect  after  all  it  makes  but  little  difference 
to  which  school  you  go,  whether  to  the  woods 
or  to  the  city.  A  sincere  man  learns  pretty 
much  the  same  things  in  both  places. 

John  Burroughs. 


If  I  do  what  I  may  in  earnest  I  need  not  mourn 
if  I  work  no  great  work  on  the  earth.  To  help 
the  growth  of  a  thought  that  struggles  toward 
the  light;  to  brush  with  gentle  hand  the  earth 
stain  from  the  white  of  one  snowdrop  —  such  be 
my  ambition! 

George  Macdonald. 


It  is  pitiable  to  think  of  the  devices  that  people 
resort  to  in  order  to  live  a  lie  and  to  foist  them- 
selves upon  the  public  for  what  they  are  not. 
There  seems  to  be  no  limit  to  the  depths  of 
silliness,  meanness,  falsity,  and  dishonour  to 
which  the  straining  for  appearances  will  not 
lead.  Not  long  ago  a  "  smart  "  young  man  was 
heard  bragging  how  he  had  not  paid  a  dollar 
for  room  rent  in  three  years.  He  said  that  all 
he  had  to  do  was  to  dress  well,  take  a  large, 
good-looking  trunk  to  his  room,  stave  off  the 
landlady  with  smooth  words  as  long  as  he  could, 
and  then  leave  an  empty  trunk  and  steal  away 
to  another  part  of  the  city  to  work  the  same 
129 


THE  VALUE  OF 


game.  A  young  lawyer  says  that,  by  adopting 
similar  means,  he  has  been  able  to  dodge  his  rent 
for  many  months.  Another  boasts  how  skilfully 
he  can  dupe  fashionable  tailors  into  giving  him 
credit  by  the  plausible  stories  he  tells  them. 

Orison  J.  Ma.rd.en, 


There,  where  a  few  torn  shrubs  the  place  dis- 

close, 

The  village  preacher's  modest  mansion  rose. 
A  man  he  was  to  all  the  country  dear, 
And  passing  rich  with  forty  pounds  a  year; 
Remote  from  towns  he  ran  his  godly  race, 
Nor  e'er  had  changed,  nor  wished  to  change  his 

place  ; 

Unpractised  he  to  fawn,  or  seek  for  power, 
By  doctrines  fashioned  to  the  varying  hour; 
Far  other  aims  his  heart  had  learned  to  prize, 
More  skilled  to  raise  the  wretched  than  to  rise. 

Oliver  Goldsmith. 


On  a  wedding-day  the  unessential  things  are 
crowded  to  the  front,  the  runnings  to  and  fro, 
the  preparation  of  a  feast,  the  dressing,  the  car- 
riages; and  everything  else  receives  more  atten- 
tion than  that  which  should  be  the  principal  con- 
cern. Often  a  crowd  is  invited,  a  crowd  of  persons 
who  are  almost  strangers,  or  who,  at  any  rate,  are 


SIMPLICITY 

quite  indifferent,  and  have  no  business  there,  who 
merely  interfere.  The  most  solemn  day  in  two 
persons'  lives  is  spoiled  because  we  do  not  stop  to 
think  that  true  life  consists  in  giving  point  to 
the  things  which  are  important,  and  not  allowing 
the  things  which  are  unimportant  to  occupy  the 
mind.  Is  not  a  simple  wedding  better,  a  simple 
wedding  in  which  there  is  beauty,  solemnity,  and 
joy  shared  by  those  into  whose  lives  it  fittingly 
comes  and  not  by  the  indifferent,  to  whom  the 
parents  owe  social  obligations? 

Felix  Jtdler. 


From  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  in  his  needs  as  in 
his  pleasures,  in  his  conception  of  the  world  and 
of  himself,  the  man  of  modern  times  struggles 
through  a  maze  of  endless  complication.  Nothing 
is  simple  any  longer;  neither  thought  nor  action; 
not  pleasure,  not  even  dying.  With  our  own 
hands  we  have  added  to  existence  a  train  of  hard- 
ships. 

Charles  Wagner. 


All  the  works  of  God  are  characterized  by  great 
and  even  amazing  simplicity,  when  we  contem- 
plate their  extent ;  and  the  wonder  is,  not  that  the 
original  ideas  in  reference  to  which  they  are  con- 
stituted are  so  many,  but  that  they  are  so  few. 

H.    Winslow. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

How  vainly  men  themselves  amaze 
To  win  the  palm,  the  oak,  or  bays, 
And  their  incessant  labours  see 
Crown'd  from  some  single  herb  or  tree, 
Whose  short  and  narrow-verged  shade 
Does  prudently  their  toils  upbraid; 
While  all  the  flowers  and  trees  do  close 
To  weave  the  garlands  of  Repose. 

Mndrew  Marvell. 
*        *        * 

They  all  were  looking  for  a  king 
To  slay  their  foes  and  lift  them  high: 

Thou  cam'st,  a  little  baby  thing 
That  made  a  woman  cry. 

O  Son  of  Man,  to  right  my  lot 
Naught  but  Thy  presence  can  avail; 

Yet  on  the  road  Thy  wheels  are  not, 
Nor  on  the  sea  Thy  sail! 

George  Macdonald. 


We  make  those  with  whom  we  associate  happy 
or  miserable  in  their  association  with  us  by  the 
little  things  we  say  or  do  not  say,  the  insignificant 
things  we  do  or  do  not  do.  The  innuendoes,  the 
curl  of  the  lip,  the  tone  of  the  voice,  the  move- 
ment of  a  finger  —  these  things  are  more  im- 
portant than  the  great  things  about  which  wi 
are  so  careful. 


Minot  J.  Savage. 


132 


SIMPLICITY 


If  we  suppose  that  there  are  spirits  or  angels 
who  look  into  the  ways  of  men,  as  it  is  highly 
probable  there  are,  both  from  reason  and  revela- 
tion, how  different  are  the  notions  which  they 
entertain  of  us,  from  those  which  we  are  apt 
to  form  of  one  another?  Were  they  to  give  us 
their  catalogue  of  such  worthies  as  are  now 
living,  how  different  would  it  be  from  that  which 
any  of  our  own  species  would  draw  up? 

The  Spectator. 

~       *        ~ 

'z^^^jy  ^^^^\  jf 

Beneath  her  torn  hat  glowed  the  wealth 
Of  simple  beauty  and  rustic  health. 

J.   G.    Whittier. 

How  many  of  us  are  there  who  do  not  care 
more  for  an  artist's  sketches  than  for  his  finished 
work?  Rodin's  distinction  lies  in  the  fact  that 
he  knows  when  he  has  said  all  that  he  can  say 
joyously,  and  the  result,  whether  it  is  rough  or 
fine,  tells  its  story  —  not  necessarily  our  story, 
but  Rodin's  story.  Its  individuality  may  indeed 
make  it  caviare  to  the  general  —  at  least  until 
the  "  general "  shall  become  artsmen  themselves. 
And  that  is  just  the  mischief  with  our  mechanical 
and  unindividual  age.  It  must  overornament  and 
overfinish  to  meet  a  market  which  shows  a 
general  and  inevitable  lack  of  individual  taste. 


Will  Price. 


'33 


THE  VALUE  OF 

What  material  things  does  a  man  need  to  live 
under  the  best  conditions?  A  healthful  diet, 
simple  clothing,  a  sanitary  dwelling-place,  air  and 
exercise. 

Charles  Wagner. 


Wisely  and  well  spake  Abraham  Davenport, 
Straight  to  the  question,  with  no  figures  of  speech 
Save  the  ten  Arab  signs. 

J.   G.   Whittier. 


Now  I  yearn  for  one  of  those  old,  meander- 
ing, dry,  uninhabited  roads,  which  lead  away 
from  towns,  which  lead  us  away  from  tempta- 
tion, which  conduct  us  to  the  outside  of  earth, 
over  its  uppermost  crust;  where  you  may  for- 
get in  what  country  you  are  travelling;  where 
your  head  is  more  in  heaven  than  your  feet  are 
on  earth;  where  you  can  pace  when  your  breast 
is  full,  and  cherish  your  moodiness.  .  .  .  There 
I  can  walk  and  recover  the  lost  child  that  I  am 
without  any  ringing  of  a  bell. 

H.   D.  Thoreau. 


Princes  have  but  their  titles  for  their  glories, 
An  outward  honour  for  an  inward  toil. 


Shakespeare. 


SIMPLICITY 

Any  simple,  unquestioned  mode  of  life  is  allur- 
ing to  men.  The  man  who  picks  peas  steadily 
for  a  living  is  more  than  respectable.  He  is  to 
be  envied  by  his  neighbours. 

H.    D.    Thoreau. 


Why,  what  is  pomp,  rule,  reign,  but  earth  and 

dust? 
And,  live  we  now  we  can,  yet  die  we  must. 

Shakespeare, 


And  still  to  childhood's  sweet  appeal 

The  heart  of  genius  turns, 
And  more  than  all  the  sages  teach 

From  lisping  voices  learns. 

J.  G.    Whittier. 
£?£>£> 

Here  rests  his  head  upon  the  lap  of  Earth 
A  Youth,  to  Fortune  and  to  Fame  unknown; 

Fair  Science  frown'd  not  on  his  humble  birth, 
And  Melancholy  mark'd  him  for  her  own. 

Large  was  his  bounty,  and  his  soul  sincere; 

Heaven  did  a  recompense  as  largely  send: 
He  gave  to  Misery  all  he  had,  a  tear, 

He  gain'd  from   Heaven,   'twas  all  he   wish'd, 
a  friend. 


Thomas  Gray. 


\ 


THE  VALUE  OF 

I  should  be  pleased  to  meet  man  in  the  woods. 
I  wish  he  were  to  be  encountered  like  wild  cari- 
bous and  moose. 

Of  what  consequence  whether  I  stand  on 
London  bridge  for  the  next  century,  or  look 
into  the  depths  of  this  bubbling  spring  which 
I  have  laid  open  with  my  hoe? 

H.   D.   Thoreau. 


What,  stand  with  slackened  hands  and  fallen 
heart  before  the  littleness  of  your  service!  Too 
little,  is  it,  to  be  perfect  in  it?  Would  you,  then, 
if  you  were  Master,  risk  a  greater  treasure  in 
the  hands  of  such  a  man?  Oh,  there  is  no  man, 
no  woman,  so  small  that  they  cannot  make  their 
life  great  by  high  endeavour;  no  sick  crippled 
child  in  its  bed  that  cannot  fill  a  niche  of  service 
that  way  in  the  world.  This  is  the  beginning  of 
all  Gospels  —  that  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
at  hand  just  where  we  are.  It  is  just  as  near  us 
as  our  work  is,  for  the  gate  of  Heaven  for  each 
soul  lies  in  the  endeavour  to  do  that  work  per- 
fectly. 

William  C.  Gannett. 


Never  anything  can  be  amiss, 
When  simpleness  and  duty  tender  it. 

Shakespeare. 
I36 

Si  l\ 


SIMPLICITY 

Yes,  there  is  holy  pleasure  in  thine  eye! 
—  The  lovely  cottage  in  the  guardian  nook 
Hath  stirr'd  thee  deeply;  with  its  own  dear  brook, 
Its  own  small  pasture,  almost  its  own  sky! 

But  covet  not  the  abode  —  O  do  not  sigh 
As  many  do,  repining  while  they  look; 
Intruders  who  would  tear  from  Nature's  book 
This  precious  leaf  with  harsh  impiety: 


—  Think  what  the  home  would  be  if  it  were  thine, 
Even  thine,  though  few  thy  wants !  —  Roof,  win- 
dow, door, 
The  very  flowers  are  sacred  to  the  Poor, 

The  roses  to  the  porch  which  they  entwine: 
Yea,  all  that  now  enchants  thee,  from  the  day 
On  which  it  should  be  touch'd  would  melt  away! 

William  Wordsworth. 


To  give  pleasure  to  others  and  take  it  our- 
selves, we  have  to  begin  by  removing  the  ego, 
which  is  hateful,  and  then  keep  it  in  chains  as 
long  as  the  diversions  last.  There  is  no  worse 
kill-joy  than  the  ego.  We  must  be  good  children, 
sweet  and  kind,  button  our  coats  over  our  medals 
and  titles,  and  with  our  whole  heart  put  our- 
selves at  the  disposal  of  others. 


Charles  Wagner. 


'37 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Aurelia,  though  a  woman  of  great  quality,  de- 
lights in  the  privacy  of  a  country  life,  and  passes 
away  a  great  part  of  her  time  in  her  own  walks 
and  gardens.  Her  husband,  who  is  her  bosom 
friend  and  companion  in  her  solitude,  has  been 
in  love  with  her  ever  since  he  knew  her.  They 
both  abound  with  good  sense,  consummate  vir- 
tue, and  a  mutual  esteem;  and  are  a  perpetual  en- 
tertainment to  one  another.  Their  family  is 
under  so  regular  an  economy,  in  its  hours  of 
devotion  and  repast,  employment  and  diversion, 
that  it  looks  like  a  little  commonwealth  within 
itself.  They  often  go  into  company,  that  they  may 
return  with  the  greater  delight  to  one  another, 
and  sometimes  live  in  town,  not  to  enjoy  it 
so  properly,  as  to  grow  weary  of  it,  that  they  may 
renew  in  themselves  a  relish  of  a  country  life. 
By  this  means  they  are  happy  in  each  other,  be- 
loved by  their  children,  adored  by  their  servants, 
and  are  become  the  envy  or  rather  the  delight 
of  all  that  know  them. 

Joseph  Jtddlson. 


Ceremony  was  but  devised  at  first 
To  set  a  gloss  on  faint  deeds,  hollow  welcomes, 
Recanting  goodness,  sorry  ere  'tis  shown; 
But  where  there  is  true  friendship,  there  needs 
none. 

Shakespeare. 

138 


SIMPLICITY 

The  hope  of  pleasure  in  the  work  itself: 
strange  that  hope  must  seem  to  some  of  my 
readers  —  to  most  of  them!  Yet  I  think  that  to 
all  living  things  there  is  a  pleasure  in  the  exer- 
cise of  their  energies,  and  that  even  beasts  re- 
joice in  being  lithe  and  swift  and  strong.  But  a 
man  at  work,  making  something  which  he  feels 
will  exist  because  he  is  working  at  it  and  wills 
it,  is  exercising  the  energies  of  his  mind  and  soul 
as  well  as  of  his  body.  Memory  and  imagination 
keep  him  as  he  works.  Not  only  his  own 
thoughts,  but  the  thoughts  of  the  men  of  past 
ages  guide  his  hands;  and,  as  a  part  of  the  human 
race,  he  creates.  If  we  work  thus  we  shall  be 
men,  and  our  days  will  be  happy  and  eventful. 
Thus  worthy  work  carries  with  it  the  hope  of 
pleasure  in  rest,  the  hope  of  the  pleasure  in  our 
using  what  it  makes,  and  the  hope  of  pleasure 
in  our  daily  creative  skill.  All  other  work  but 
this  is  worthless;  it  is  slave's  work  —  mere  toil- 
ing to  live,  that  we  may  live  to  toil. 

William.  Morris. 


Great  thoughts  hallow  any  labour.  To-day  I 
earned  seventy-five  cents  heaving  manure  out 
of  a  pen,  and  made  a  good  bargain  of  it.  If  the 
ditcher  muses  the  while  how  he  may  live  up- 
rightly, the  ditching-spade  and  turf-knife  may 
be  engraved  on  the  coat  of  arms  of  his  posterity. 

H.   D,   Thoreau. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


All  that  glisters  is  not  gold; 
Often  you  have  heard  that  told: 
Many  a  man  his  life  hath  sold 
But  my  outside  to  behold: 
Gilded  tombs   do   worms   infold. 
Had  you  been  as  wise  as  bold, 
Young  in  limbs,  in  judgment  old, 
Your  answer  had  not  been  inscroll'd. 


Shakespeare. 


One  must  have  a  strong,  level  head,  indeed, 
to  live  in  a  great  city  without  being  dazzled  or 
led  away  by  the  glitter  and  show,  the  false  dis- 
play, and  the  flaunting  of  wealth  on  every  hand. 
It  takes  a  well-poised  mind  and  a  steady,  well- 
balanced  character  to  cling  to  one's  aim,  to  keep 
dead  in  earnest  through  it  all,  to  keep  plodding, 
and  to  remain  true  to  one's  ideals.  It  takes  cour- 
age to  live  a  simple,  natural  life  in  the  midst  of 
superficiality,  or  to  be  true  to  one's  self  in  the 
midst  of  unreality,  but  in  the  final  balancing  of 
accounts  it  is  the  only  thing  that  pays. 

Orison  S.  Marden. 


i  look  at  a  piece  of  mediaeval  work.    You  will 
as   a  rule   not  find   such  finish   as   I   have   been 
describing.      The    Gothic    tracery    cut    in    wood 
shows  the  sweeping  stroke  of  a  sure  but  not  over- 
140 


SIMPLICITY 


anxious  hand.  The  designs  of  panels  vary  not 
because  the  workman  tried  to  make  them  differ- 
ent, but  because  he  could  see  no  sense  in  making 
them  alike.  The  old  tooled  leather  is  simple  to 
the  point  of  crudeness  compared  to  the  over- 
worked leather  of  to-day,  and  yet  it  is  infinitely 
more  interesting  and  splendid. 

Will  Price, 
£?         J&         £? 

How  I  love  the  simple,  reserved  countrymen, 
my  neighbours,  who  mind  their  own  business 
and  let  me  alone;  who  never  waylaid  nor  shot  at 
me,  to  my  knowledge,  when  I  crossed  their  fields, 
though  each  one  has  a  gun  in  his  house.  For 
nearly  two  score  years  I  have  known  at  a  dis- 
tance these  long-suffering  men,  whom  I  never 
spoke  to,  who  never  spoke  to  me,  and  now  I  feel 
a  certain  tenderness  for  them,  as  if  this  long  pro- 
bation were  but  the  prelude  to  an  eternal  friend- 
ship. What  a  long  trial  we  have  withstood,  and 
how  much  more  admirable  we  are  to  each  other, 
perchance,  than  if  we  had  been  bedfellows.  I 
am  not  only  grateful  because  Homer  and  Shake- 
speare have  lived,  but  I  am  grateful  for  Minott, 
and  Rice,  and  Melvin,  and  Goodwin,  and  Puffer 
even.  I  see  Melvin  all  alone  filling  his  sphere 
in  russet  suit,  which  no  other  would  fill  or  sug- 
gest. He  takes  up  as  much  room  in  nature  as 
the  most  famous. 

H.    Z>.    Thoreau. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


True,  we  can  never  be  at  peace  till  we  have 
performed  the  highest  duty  of  all,  —  till  we  have 
arisen,  and  gone  to  our  Father;  but  the  per- 
formance of  smaller  duties,  yes,  even  of  the 
smallest,  will  do  more  to  give  us  temporary  re- 
pose, will  act  more  as  healthful  anodynes,  than 
the  greatest  joys  that  can  come  to  us  from  any 
other  quarter. 

%  W  ^^ry 

George  Macdonal 


Has  not  everything  in  creation  its  own  place 
and  hour?  Who  would  venture  to  say  that  a 
potato  is  inferior  to  a  pomegranate?  Decadence 
set  in  from  the  moment  that  art,  which  was  in 
point  of  fact  the  child  of  nature,  became  the 
supreme  goal,  and  men  took  some  great  artist  for 
their  model,  forgetting  that  his  eyes  had  been 
fixed  on  the  infinite.  They  talked  of  working 
from  nature,  but  they  approached  her  in  a  con- 
ventional form.  If,  for  instance,  they  wished  to 
paint  an  open-air  subject,  they  copied  the  model 
indoors,  without  reflecting  that  the  light  of  the 
atelier  had  little  in  common  with  the  all-per- 
vading light  of  open  day.  Artists  would  never 
have  been  so  easily  satisfied  had  they  been  moved 
by  a  really  deep  emotion.  For  since  what  is  in- 
finite can  only  be  expressed  by  a  faithful  record 
of  actual  fact,  this  falsehood  nullified  all  their 
efforts.  There  can  be  no  isolated  truth.  From 


the  moment  that  technical  merits  were  made 
the  first  object  in  painting,  one  thing  became 
clear:  any  one  who  had  acquired  considerable 
anatomical  knowledge  tried  to  bring  this  side 
of  his  art  forward  and  was  loudly  praised.  No 
one  reflected  that  these  admirable  qualities  ought 
to  have  been  used,  like  everything  else,  to  ex- 
press ideas.  Instead  of  trying  to  express  definite 
thoughts,  the  successful  artist  drew  up  his  pro- 
gramme and  chose  subjects  which  afforded  op- 
portunities for  the  display  of  his  own  skilful 
handicraft.  And  instead  of  using  knowledge  as 
the  handmaid  of  thought,  thought  itself  was 
stifled  under  a  brilliant  display  of  fireworks.  One 
artist  copied  another,  and  the  fashion  became 
general. 

Jean  Francois  Millet. 


All  nature  is  classic  and  akin  to  art;  the  su- 
mach and  pine  and  hickory  which  surround  my 
house  remind  me  of  the  most  graceful  sculpture. 
Sometimes  their  tops,  or  a  single  limb  or  leaf, 
seem  to  have  grown  to  a  distinct  expression,  as  if 
it  were  a  symbol  for  me  to  interpret. 

Poetry,  Painting,  and  Sculpture  claim  at  once 
and  associate  with  themselves  those  perfect  speci- 
mens of  the  art  of  nature,  —  leaves,  vines,  acorns, 
pine-cones,  etc. 

H .   D.   Thoreau. 

'43 

5\BnQ       ^f*J 


THE  VALUE  OF 

If  it  were  possible  to  make  all  understand  that 
the  ideal  society  is  not  something  in  the  circle 
in  which  we  do  not  move,  or  in  the  great  city 
which  lies  a  little  beyond  our  horizon,  but  just 
around  us  in  our  immediate  vicinity,  a  great  step 
would  be  taken  toward  "  the  simple  life."  If  we 
would  have  delightful  companions,  they  can  be 
found  in  our  neighbours'  houses.  If  we  seek 
sympathetic  friends,  they  are  really  amongst 
those  we  already  know  —  if  we  ourselves  are 
prepared  to  give  them  unselfish  and  disinterested 
friendship. 

John  Brisben  Walker. 


Hence,  lying  world,  with  all  thy  care, 
With  all  thy  shows  of  good  and  fair, 

Of  beautiful  or  great! 
Stand  with   thy   slighted  charms  aloof, 
Nor  dare  invade  my  peaceful  roof, 

Or  trouble  my  retreat. 

Far  from  thy  mad  fantastic  ways 
I  here  have  found  a  resting-place 

Of  poor  wayfaring  men: 
Calm  as  the  hermit  in  his  grot 
I  here  enjoy  my  happy  lot, 

And  solid  pleasures  gain. 

Charles  Wesley. 

144 


SIMPLICITY 

The  Greek,  proceeding  from  the  bosom  of 
nature,  attained  to  art  when  he  had  made  himself 
independent  of  the  immediate  influence  of  nature. 
We,  violently  debarred  from  nature,  and  pro- 
ceeding from  the  dull  ground  of  a  heaven-rid 
and  juristic  civilization,  shall  first  reach  art  when 
we  completely  turn  our  backs  on  such  a  civili- 
zation, and  once  more  cast  ourselves,  with  con- 
scious bent,  into  the  arms  of  nature. 

Richard   Wagner. 


True  happiness  is  of  a  retired  nature,  and  an 
enemy  to  pomp  and  noise;  it  arises,  in  the  first 
place,  from  the  enjoyment  of  one's  self;  and  in 
the  next,  from  the  friendship  and  conversation 
of  a  few  select  companions:  it  loves  shade  and 
solitude,  and  naturally  haunts  groves  and  foun- 
tains, fields  and  meadows:  in  short,  it  feels  every- 
thing it  wants  within  itself,  and  receives  no  addi- 
tion from  multitudes  of  witnesses  and  spectators. 
On  the  contrary,  false  happiness  loves  to  be  in  a 
crowd,  and  to  draw  the  eyes  of  the  world  upon 
her.  She  does  not  receive  any  satisfaction  from 
the  applauses  which  she  gives  herself,  but  from 
the  admiration  she  raises  in  others.  She  flourishes 
in  courts  and  palaces,  theatres  and  assemblies, 
and  has  no  existence  but  when  she  is  looked 
upon. 

Joseph  Jtddison. 

MS 


THE  VALUE  OF 


I  am  only  a  dentist.  I  doubt  if  I  could  make  a 
good  chair  without  long  apprenticeship.  But  I 
have  schooled  myself  to  like  even  the  disagreeable 
features  of  my  daily  work  and  find  the  greatest 
satisfaction  in  restoring  the  lost  contour  of  a 
tooth,  or  the  lost  contour  of  a  face,  by  inventing 
for  each  case  brought  before  me  suitable  plans  for 
replacing  and  restoring  what  has  been  lost.  My 
work  has  led  me  into  sympathy  with  many  arts. 
I  must  handle  gold  with  the  jeweler.  I  must 
handle  wax  and  plaster  with  the  sculptor  and 
carver.  I  must  follow  the  machinist  and  tool 
maker  in  the  construction  of  mechanical  appli- 
ances, motors,  and  time-saving  short  cuts  in  tools 
made  at  a  moment's  notice  to  cover  a  special 
case. 

Percival  Wiksell. 
*>       *       *> 

"What  shall  I  do  to  gain  eternal  life?" 

"  Discharge  aright 

The  simple  dues  with  which  each  day  is  rife, 
Yea,  with  thy  might. 

Schiller. 


Whenever  a  mind  is  simple  and  receives  a 
divine  wisdom,  then  old  things  pass  away,  — 
means,  teachers,  texts,  temples  fall;  it  lives  now, 
and  absorbs  past  and  future  into  the  present 
hour. 


SIMPLICITY 


Brilliancy  is  a  good  thing.  So  is  genius.  But 
normally  what  we  want  is  not  genius,  but  the 
faculty  of  seeing  that  we  know  how  to  apply  the 
copy-book  moralities  that  we  write  down,  and 
as  long  as  we  think  of  them  only  as  fit  for  the 
copy-book  there  is  not  much  use  in  us. 

Theodore  Roosevelt* 


For  everything  that  is  given  something  is 
taken.  Society  acquires  new  arts  and  loses  old 
instincts.  What  a  contrast  between  the  well- 
clad,  reading,  writing,  thinking  American,  with 
a  watch,  a  pencil,  and  a  bill  of  exchange  in  his 
pocket,  and  the  naked  New  Zealander,  whose 
property  is  a  club,  a  spear,  a  mat,  and  an  un- 
divided twentieth  of  a  shed  to  sleep  under.  But 
compare  the  health  of  the  two  men  and  you 
shall  see  that  his  aboriginal  strength,  the  white 
man  has  lost.  If  the  traveller  tell  us  truly, 
strike  the  savage  with  a  broadaxe  and  in  a  day 
or  two  the  flesh  shall  unite  and  heal  as  if  you 
struck  the  blow  into  soft  pitch,  and  the  same 
blow  shall  send  the  white  to  his  grave. 

The  civilized  man  has  built  a  coach,  but  has 
lost  the  use  of  his  feet.  He  is  supported  on 
crutches,  but  lacks  so  much  support  of  muscle. 
He  has  got  a  fine  Geneva  watch,  but  he  has  lost 
the  skill  to  tell  the  hour  by  the  sun.  A  Green- 
wich nautical  almanac  he  has,  and  so  being  sure 

M7 


THE  VALUE  OF 

of  the  information  when  he  wants  it,  the  man 
in  the  street  does  not  know  a  star  in  the  sky. 
The  solstice  he  does  not  observe;  the  equinox 
he  knows  as  little;  and  the  whole  bright  calendar 
of  the  year  is  without  a  dial  in  his  mind.  His 
note-books  impair  his  memory;  his  libraries 
overload  his  wit;  the  insurance  office  increases 
the  number  of  accidents;  and  it  may  be  a  ques- 
tion whether  machinery  does  not  encumber; 
whether  we  have  not  lost  by  refinement  some 
energy,  by  a  Christianity  intrenched  in  establish- 
ments and  forms  some  vigour  of  wild  virtue. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


We  are  all  too  gross,  too  materialistic,  too 
earthly,  to  comprehend  even  so  much  as  the 
rudiments  of  the  life  of  heaven.  And  yet  it  is 
a  perfect  simplicity.  The  happy  life  of  heaven 
is  the  life  of  purified  affections,  of  guileless  hearts, 
of  love  and  trust,  beautiful  as  those  that  often 
win  us  so  in  little  children. 

John  Page  Hopps. 


Beauty   heightened   by    simplicity   is   ineffable 
and  nothing  is  so  adorable  as  a  beauteous,  inno- 
cent   maiden,    who    walks    along    unconscious! 
holding  in  her  hand  the  key  of  Paradise. 

Victor  Hugo 

148 

\^v 


SIMPLICITY 


What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead! 
Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head; 
The  luscious  clusters  of  a  vine 
Upon  my  mouth  do  crush  their  wine; 
The  nectarine,  and  curious  peach, 
Into   my  hands  themselves  do  reach; 
Stumbling  on  melons,  as  I  pass, 
Ensnared  with  flowers,  I  fall  on  grass. 

Meanwhile  the  mind,  from  pleasure  less, 
Withdraws  into  its  happiness;  — 
The  mind,  that  ocean  where  each  kind 
Does  straight  its  own  resemblance  find; 
Yet  it  creates,  transcending  these, 
Far  other  worlds,  and  other  seas, 
Annihilating  all  that's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade. 

Jtndrew  Marvell. 


Let  the  question  be,  not  what  is  popular  or 
expedient,  but  what  is  honest,  and  let  that  be 
done  though  the  heavens  fall. 

This  is  the  rule  of  that  best  society  which 
makes  no  ostentatious  display,  and  indulges  in 
no  sham  tastes  or  sham  enthusiasms,  or  other  un- 
realities, but  is  distinguished  by  simplicity  and 
genuineness. 

Samuel  Smith  Harris. 

149 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Just  to  let  thy  Father  do 

What  He  will; 
Just  to  know  that  He  is  true, 

And    be   still. 
Just  to  follow  hour  by  hour 

As  He  leadeth; 
Just  to  draw  the  moment's  power 

As  it  needeth. 
Just  to  trust  Him,  this  is  all! 

Then  the  day  will  surely  be 
Peaceful,  whatso'er  befall, 

Bright  and  blessed,  calm  and  free. 

F.  ft.  Havergal. 


If  there  were  only  thousands  of  men  fighting  in 
the  coat  of  Henry  Thoreau!  —  possessing  a 
similar  Spartan  spirit,  as  upright  a  life,  as  inde- 
pendent and  simple!  Have  you  felt  the  cool 
sense  of  power  and  safety  that  lies  in  the  posses- 
sion of  four  or  five  arts  or  trades,  such  as  farm- 
ing, gardening,  teaching,  editing,  typography, 
wood-chopping  ? 

William  S.  Kennedy. 


No  man  can  gauge  the  value  in  English  life 
at  this  present  critical  time  of  a  steady  stream  of 
young  men,  flowing  into  all  professions  and  all 
industries  from  our  public  schools,  who  have 

150 


SIMPLICITY 

learnt  resolutely  to  use  those  words  so  hard  to 
speak  in  a  society  such  as  ours,  "  I  can't  afford; " 
who  have  been  trained  to  have  few  wants  and 
to  serve  these  themselves,  so  that  they  may  have 
always  something  to  spare  of  power  and  of  means 
to  help  others ;  who  are  "  careless  of  the  comfits 
and  cushions  of  life,"  and  content  to  leave  them 
to  the  valets  of  all  ranks. 

Thomas  Hughes. 


Who  doth  ambition  shun 
And  loves  to  live  i'  the  sun, 
Seeking  the  food  he  eats 
And  pleased  with  what  he  gets  — 
Come  hither,  come  hither,  come  hither! 
Here  shall  he  see 
No  enemy 
But  winter  and  rough  weather. 

Shakespeare. 


The  simplest  ideas  are  sometimes  the  most 
incommunicable.  Mankind  are  so  prone  to 
mystery  that  they  create  it,  and  expect  to  find  it 
where  it  does  not  exist;  moreover,  simplicity  is 
the  first  thing  that  is  lost,  and  the  last  that  is 
regained. 

Jtcton. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Not  his  the  soldier's  sword  to  wield, 

Nor  his  the  helm  of  state, 
Nor  glory  of  the  stricken  field, 

Nor  triumph  of  debate. 


In  common  ways,  with  common  men, 
He  served  his  race  and  time. 

J.  G.   WMttier:  "  Hat  leek. 


Be  simple  and  modest  in  your  deportment,  and 
treat  with  indifference  whatever  lies  between 
virtue  and  vice. 

Marcus  Jiurelius. 


She  walks  in  beauty,  like  the  night 
Of  cloudless  climes  and  starry  skies, 

And  all  that's  best  of  dark  and  bright 
Meets  in  her  aspect  and  her  eyes, 

Thus  mellow'd  to  that  tender  light 
Which  heaven  to  gaudy  day  denies. 


One  shade  the  more,  one  ray  the  less 
Had  half-impair'd  the  nameless  grace 

Which  waves  in  every  raven  tress 
Or  softly  lightens  o'er  her  face, 

Where  thoughts  serenely  sweet  express 
How  pure,  how  dear  their  dwelling-place. 

Lord.  Byron. 


SIMPLICITY 


fellow  of  plain,  uncoined  constancy. 

Sha  kespea  re. 

j>          „    *    „ 

I  ask  for  simplicity  in  literature,  not  only  as 
one  of  the  best  remedies  for  the  dejection  of 
our  souls  —  biases,  jaded,  weary  of  eccentricities 
—  but  also  as  a  pledge  and  source  of  social 
union.  I  ask  also  for  simplicity  in  art.  Our  art 
and  our  literature  are  reserved  for  the  privileged 
few  of  education  and  fortune. 

Charles  Wagner. 


Our  life  is  frittered  away  by  detail.  An  honest 
man  has  hardly  need  to  count  more  than  his  ten 
fingers,  or  in  extreme  cases  he  may  add  his  ten 
toes,  and  lump  the  rest.  Simplicity,  simplicity, 
simplicity!  I  say,  let  your  affairs  be  as  two  or 
three,  and  not  a  hundred  or  a  thousand;  instead 
of  a  million  count  half  a  dozen,  and  keep  your 
accounts  on  your  thumb-nail. 

H.  D.  Thoreau. 
£?£>£> 

•       "^*y  ^  i 

Very  few  modern  lyrics  possess  the  singing 
quality.  The  term  "  lyric  verse,"  as  used  to-day, 
is  a  misnomer.  It  is  as  intricate  in  form  and 
phrase  as  if  not  consecrated  to  the  lyre  by  poets 
in  the  dawn  of  art.  The  divorce  between  poetry 
and  song  grows  more  absolute  year  by  year; 

'S3 


THE  VALUE  OF 

composers  search  almost  vainly  through  modern 
volumes  of  verse  for  lyrics  that  combine  the 
melody  and  feeling,  the  spontaneity  and  grace, 
indispensable  to  song.  It  is  not  that  the  modern 
poet  is  unable  to  produce  such,  but  that  he  does 
not  choose.  It  has  gone  out  of  fashion,  to  state 
the  case  quite  frankly,  to  write  with  a  singing 
cadence;  something  rare  and  strange  must  issue 
from  the  poet's  lips,  something  inobvious.  Art 
lurks  in  surprises,  and  the  poet  of  to-day  must 
be  a  diviner  of  mysteries,  a  searcher  of  secrets, 
in  nature  and  humanity  and  truth,  and  a  revealer 
of  them  in  his  art,  though  he  reveal  ofttimes  but 
conceal. 

Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse. 

£jlf        ^^f 

^^>          j^^ 

^//    i   K »  xr*"*xj"^^^™^^v^^f^^^^v  J  ^^\     f      ^^     f 

Simplicity  is  that  grace  which  frees  the  soul 
from  all  unnecessary  reflections  upon  itself. 

Fenelon. 


Up!   up,  my  friend!    and  quit  your  books, 

Or  surely  you'll  grow  double; 
Up!   up,  my  friend!   and  clear  your  looks! 

Why  all  this  toil  and  trouble? 

The  sun,  above  the  mountain's  head, 

A  freshening  lustre  mellow 
Through  all  the  long  green  fields  has  spread, 

His  first  sweet   evening   yellow. 


SIMPLICITY 

Books!   'tis  a  dull  and  endless  strife; 

Come,  hear  the  woodland  linnet  — 
How  sweet  his  music!    on  my  life, 

There's  more  of  wisdom  in  it! 


And  hark!    how  blithe  the  throstle  sings! 

He,  too,  is  no  mean  preacher; 
Come  forth  into  the  light  of  things  — 

Let  Nature  be  your  teacher. 

A 

She  has  a  world  of  ready  wealth, 
Our  minds  and  hearts  to  bless, — 

Spontaneous  wisdom  breathed  by  health, 
Truth   breathed  by   cheerfulness. 

One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 

May  teach  you  more  of  man, 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good, 

Than  all  the  sages  can. 

Sweet  is  the  lore  which  nature  brings; 

Our  meddling  intellect 
Misshapes  the  beauteous  forms  of  things 

We  murder  to  dissect. 

^2*s/&& 

Enough  of  science  and  of  art; 

Close  up  those  barren  leaves; 
Come  forth,  and  bring  with  you  a  heart 

That  watches  and  receives. 

William    Wordsworth. 


THE  VALUE  OF 

Simplicity,  innocence,  industry,  temperance, 
are  arts  that  lead  to  tranquillity,  as  much  as  learn- 
ing, knowledge,  wisdom,  and  contemplation.  A 
noble  simplicity  in  discourse  is  a  talent  rare,  and 
above  the  reach  of  ordinary  men. 

Benjamin  Franklin. 


rra 


O   reader!    had  you  in  your  mind 
Such  stores  as  silent  thought  can  bring, 

O  gentle  reader!   you  would  find 
A  tale  in  everything. 

William  Wordsworth. 


So  bandaged,  and  hampered,  and  hemmed  in 
with  a  thousand  requisitions,  obligations,  straps, 
tatters,  and  tag-rags,  I  can  neither  see  nor  move: 
not  my  own  am  I,  but  the  World's;  and  time 
flies  fast,  and  Heaven  is  high,  and  Hell  is  deep: 
Man!  bethink  thee,  if  thou  hast  power  of  thought! 
Why  not!  what  binds  me  here?  Want!  Want! 
Ha,  of  what?  Will  all  the  shoe  wages  under  the 
Moon  ferry  me  across  into  that  far  land  of  light? 
Only  meditation  can,  and  devout  prayer  to  God. 

I  will  to  the  woods;  the  hollow  of  a  tree  will 
lodge  me,  wild  berries  feed  me;  and  for  Clothes, 
can  not  I  stitch  myself  one  perennial  suit  of 
Leather? 

Thomas  Carlyle. 

156 


SIMPLICITY 


Language  has  but  one  function,  and 
help  another  to  understand  what  passes 
speaker's  breast.  What  though  he  is  surrounded 
with  the  incomprehensible?  Is  he,  therefore,  au- 
thorized to  speak  in  an  unknown  tongue?  Amid 
the  vague  and  the  obscure,  are  there  not  facts, 
principles,  realities,  of  unutterable  moment,  on 
which  he  and  others  may  lay  hold?  Even  when 
he  catches  broken  glimpses,  he  can  report  these 
simply  and  faithfully,  so  as  to  be  apprehended 
by  a  prepared  mind.  The  more  difficult  the  sub- 
ject, the  more  anxiously  the  art  of  clear  ex- 
pression should  be  cultivated;  and  the  pulpit, 
which  gathers  together  the  multitude,  and  -  ad- 
dresses its  rapid  instruction  to  the  ear,  demands 
such  culture  above  all  other  spheres.  This  is  the 
last  place  for  dark  sayings;  and  yet  he  who  care- 
fully studies  expression,  will  find  the  pulpit  a 
place  for  communicating  a  great  amount  of  pro- 
found and  soul-stirring  thought  to  the  world. 

William  Ellery  Charming. 


"What  she  could"  —  not  what  she  could  not 
do  —  not  what  she  thought  might  be  done  —  not 
what  she  would  like  to  do  —  not  what  she  would 
do  if  she  had  more  time  —  not  what  somebody 
else  thought  she  ought  to  do  —  but  "what  she 
could." 

IV.  Jt.  Shipman. 
157 


FHE  VALUE  OF 


Constant  discipline  in  unnoticed  ways,  and  the 
spirit's  silent  unselfishness,  becoming  the  hidden 
habit  of  the  life,  give  to  it  its  true  saintly  beauty, 
and  this  is  the  result  of  care  and  lowly  love  in 
little  things.  Perfection  is  attained  most  readily 
by  this  constancy  of  religious  faithfulness  in  all 
minor  details  of  life,  consecrating  the  daily  efforts 
of  self-forgetting  love. 

T.  T.  Carter. 


Goodness  and  greatness  are  not  means,  but  ends! 
Hath  he  not  always  treasures,  always  friends, 
The  good,  great  man?     Three  treasures  —  Love 

and  Light, 

And  calm  Thoughts,  regular  as  infants'  breath; 
And  three  firm  friends,  more  sure  than  day  and 

night  — 
Himself,   his   Maker   and   the    Angel    Death. 

J.  T.  Coleridge. 


Singleness  of  heart  is  that  species  of  simplicity 
which  is  altogether  to  be  admired. 


We  want  to  be  doing  what  we  fancy  mighty 
things ;  but  the  great  point  is,  to  do  small  things, 
when  called  to  them,  in  a  right  spirit. 

R.  Cecil. 


SIMPLICITY 


Simplicity  is  an  uprightnes 
checks  all  useless  dwelling  upon  one's  self  and 
one's  actions.  It  is  different  from  sincerity, 
which  is  a  much  lower  virtue.  We  see  many 
people  who  are  sincere  without  being  simple; 
they  say  nothing  but  what  they  believe  to  be 
true,  and  do  not  aim  at  appearing  anything  but 
what  they  are;  but  they  are  always  in  fear  of 
passing  for  something  they  are  not|  they  are 
always  thinking  about  themselves,  weighing  all 
their  words  and  thoughts,  and  dwelling  upon 
what  they  have  done  in  the  fear  of  having  done 
too  much  or  too  little. 

F&nelon. 


When  I  thread  my  way  along  the  crowded 
thoroughfare,  leaving  Carnegie  Hall  this  morn- 
ing, on  the  way  to  my  home;  or  to-morrow, 
walking  down  our  main  street,  and  find  my 
every  sense  assaulted  by  the  din  and  the  noise 
and  rushing,  and  the  blare  of  it;  when  I  see  in 
this  New  York  the  evidence  of  increased  material 
wealth  on  every  hand,  palaces  going  up  on  every 
side,  pride  and  vanity  displaying  themselves,  and 
people  absorbed  in  it  more  and  more,  I  ask  my- 
self whether  it  is  of  any  use  to  preach  the  doc- 
trine of  simplicity  in  such  environments,  whether 
it  is  not  a  preposterous  incongruity  to  do  so, 
whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  wait  until  a  lull 

'59 


THE  VALUE  OF 

somehow  takes  place  and  the  mad  rush  is  checked, 
and  men's  minds  are  more  open  to  the  reception 
of  such  seed.  But  on  the  other  hand,  I  cannot 
help  feeling  that  just  because  the  pace  at  which 
we  are  moving  is  so  mad,  there  is  bound  to  be, 
there  is  already  setting  in,  a  reaction.  The  fifty 
thousand  readers  of  Pastor  Wagner's  book  seem 
to  prove  that  there  is  the  beginning  of  such  a 
reaction,  that  there  are  numbers  of  people  who 
are  appalled  at  the  way  the  current  is  sweeping 
them  along,  and  who  would  like  to  get  away  from 
the  rush  and  are  considering  whether  it  is  not 
time  for  them  to  take  the  helm  in  hand  and 
steer  their  own  life,  instead  of  allowing  them- 
selves to  be  swept  away,  and  who  are  asking  by 
what  chart  they  shall  steer. 

Felix  Mdlcr. 


Oh!  look  not  after  great  things:  small  breath- 
ings, small  desires  after  the  Lord,  if  true  and 
pure,  are  sweet  beginnings  of  life.  Take  heed  of 
despising  "the  day  of  small  things,"  by  looking 
after  some  great  visitation,  proportionable  to  thy 
distress,  according  to  thy  eye.  Nay,  thou  must 
become  a  child;  thou  must  lose  thy  own  will 
quite  by  degrees.  Thou  must  wait  for  life  to  be 
measured  out  by  the  Father,  and  be  content  with 
what  proportion,  and  at  what  time,  He  shall 
please  to  measure. 

/.  Penington. 

160 


SIMPLICITY 


What  should  a  man   desire   to   leave? 

A  flawless  work;   a  noble  life; 

Some  music  harmonized  from  strife, 
Some  finished  thing,  ere  the  slack  hands  at  eve 

Drop,  should  be  his  to  leave. 

Or,  in  life's  homeliest,  meanest  spot, 
With  temperate  step  from  year  to  year 
To  move  within  his  little  sphere, 

Leaving  a  pure  name  to  be  known,  or  not,  — 
This  is  a  true  man's  lot. 

Francis  Turner  Palgrave. 


Bouhours,  whom  I  look  upon  to  be  the  most 
penetrating  of  all  the  French  critics,  has  taken 
pains  to  show  that  it  is  impossible  for  any 
thought  to  be  beautiful  which  is  not  just,  and 
has  not  its  foundation  in  the  nature  of  things; 
that  the  basis  of  all  wit  is  truth,  and  that  no 
thought  can  be  valuable  of  which  good  sense 
is  not  the  groundwork.  Boileau  has  endeavoured 
to  inculcate  the  same  notion  in  several  parts  of 
his  writings,  both  in  prose  and  verse.  This  is 
that  natural  way  of  writing,  that  beautiful  sim- 
plicity, which  we  so  much  admire  in  the  com- 
positions of  the  ancients;  and  which  nobody 
deviates  from  but  those  who  want  strength  of 
genius  to  make  a  thought  shine  in  its  own  natural 
beauties.  Poets,  who  want  this  strength  of 
161 


THE  VALUE  OF 


genius  to  give  that  majestic  simplicity  to  nature, 
which  we  so  much  admire  in  the  works  of  the 
ancients,  are  forced  to  hunt  after  foreign  orna- 
ments, and  not  to  let  any  piece  of  wit  of  what 
kind  soever  escape  them.  I  look  upon  these  writ- 
ers as  Goths  in  poetry,  who  like  those  in  archi- 
tecture, not  being  able  to  come  up  to  the  beautiful 
simplicity  of  the  old  Greeks  and  Romans,  have 
endeavoured  to  supply  its  place  with  all  the  ex- 
travagancies of  an  irregular  fancy. 

Joseph  Mddlson. 

& 

Give  me  my  scallop-shell  of  quiet, 
My  staffe  of  faith  to  lean  upon, 

My  script  of  joye  —  immortal  diet  — 
My    bottle    of    salvation, 

My  gown  of  glory,  hope's  true  gage;  — 

And  thus  I  take  my  pilgrimage. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 
& 

would  desire  the  fair  sex  to  consider  how 
impossible  it  is  for  them  to  add  anything  that 
can  be  ornamental  to  what  is  already  the  master- 
piece of  nature.  The  head  has  the  most  beauti- 
ful appearance,  as  well  as  the  highest  station  in 
a  human  figure.  Nature  has  laid  out  all  her  art 
in  beautifying  the  face;  she  has  touched  it  with 
vermilion,  planted  in  it  a  double  row  of  ivory, 
made  it  the  seat  of  smiles  and  blushes;  lighted 


SIMPLICITY 

it  up  and  enlivened  it  with  the  brightness  of 
eyes,  hung  it  on  each  side  with  curious  organs  of 
sense,  given  it  airs  and  graces  that  cannot  be 
described,  and  surrounded  it  with  such  a  flowing 
shade  of  hair  as  sets  all  its  beauties  in  the  most 
agreeable  light.  In  short,  she  seems  to  have 
designed  the  head  as  the  cupola  to  the  most 
glorious  of  her  works;  and  when  we  load  it  with 
such  a  pile  of  supernumerary  ornaments,  we 
destroy  the  symmetry  of  the  human  figure,  and 
foolishly  contrive  to  call  off  the  eye  from  great 
and  real  beauties,  to  childish  gewgaws,  ribands, 
and  bonelace. 

Joseph  Jiddison. 


He  that  is  moderate  in  his  wishes  from  reason 
and  choice,  and  not  resigned  from  sourness,  dis- 
taste or  disappointment,  doubles  all  the  pleasures 
of  his  life.  The  air,  the  season,  a  sunshiny  day, 
or  a  fair  prospect,  are  instances  of  happiness,  and 
that  which  he  enjoys  in  common  with  all  the 
world  (by  his  exemption  from  the  enchantments 
by  which  all  the  world  are  bewitched)  are  to  him 
uncommon  benefits  and  new  acquisitions.  Health 
is  not  eaten  up  with  care,  nor  pleasure  interrupted 
by  envy.  It  is  not  to  him  of  any  consequence 
what  this  man  is  famed  for,  or  for  what  the  other 
is  preferred.  He  knows  there  is  in  such  a  place 
an  uninterrupted  walk;  he  can  meet  in  such  a 

163 


THE  VALUE  OF 

company  an  agreeable  conversation.  He  has  no 
emulation,  he  is  no  man's  rival,  but  every  man's 
well-wisher;  can  look  at  a  prosperous  man  with 
a  pleasure  in  reflecting  that  he  hopes  he  is  as 
happy  as  himself;  and  has  his  mind  and  his 
fortune,  as  far  as  prudence  will  allow,  open  to  the 
unhappy  and  to  the  stranger. 

Richard  Steels. 

f>        f>        ^> 


Oh!  be  little,  be  little;  and  then  thou  wilt  be 
content  with  little;  and  if  thou  feel,  now  and 
then,  a  check  or  a  secret  smiting,  —  in  that  is 
the  Father's  love;  be  not  overwise,  nor  over- 
eager,  in  thy  own  willing,  running,  and  desiring, 
and  thou  mayest  feel  it  so;  and  by  degrees  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  thy  Guide,  who  will  lead 
thee,  step  by  step,  in  the  path  of  life,  and  teach 
thee  to  follow.  Be  still,  and  wait  for  light  and 
strength. 

7.   Penington. 
£>        &        £> 

THE   RETIREMENT 

Farewell,  thou  busy  world,  and  may 
We  never  meet  again; 
Here  I  can  eat  and  sleep  and  pray, 
And  do  more  good  in  one  short  day 
Than  he  who  his  whole  age  outwears 
Upon  the  most  conspicuous  theatres, 
Where  nought  but  vanity  and  vice  appea 
164 


SIMPLICITY 


Good  God!  how  sweet  are  all  things  here! 
How  beautiful  the  fields  appear! 

How  cleanly  do  we  feed  and  lie! 
Lord!    what  good  hours  do  we  keep! 
How  quietly  we   sleep! 

What  peace,  what  unanimity! 
How  innocent  from  the  lewd  fashion 
Is  all   our  business,  all  our  recreation! 

O,  how  happy  here's  our  leisure! 

O,  how  innocent  our  pleasure! 

O  ye  valleys!    O  ye  mountains! 

O  ye  groves,  and  crystal  fountains! 

How  I  love,  at  liberty, 

By  turns  to  come  and  visit  ye! 

Charles  Cotton 


Mid  pleasures  and  palaces  though  we  may  roam, 
Be  it  ever  so  humble,  there's  no  place  like  home; 
A  charm  from  the  sky  seems  to  hallow  us  there, 
Which,  seek  through  the  world,  is  ne'er  met  with 
elsewhere. 

An  exile  from  home,  splendour  dazzles  in  vain; 
O,  give  me  my  lowly  thatched  cottage  again! 
The  birds  singing  gaily,  that  came  at  my  call, — 
Give  me  them,  —  and  the  peace  of  mind,  dearer 
than   all! 

John  Howard.  Payne. 

165 


THE  VALUE  OF 

CORIDON'S    SONG 

Oh,  the  sweet  contentment 
The   countryman   doth   find! 
That  quiet  contemplation 
Possesseth  all  my  mind; 

Then  care  away, 

And  wend  along  with  me. 


or  courts  are  full  of  flattery, 
As  hath  too  oft  been  tried; 
The  city  full   of  wantonness, 
And  both  are  full  of  pride: 

Then  care  away, 

And  wend  along  with  me. 


But,  oh!    the  honest  countryman 

Speaks  truly  from  his  heart; 

His  pride  is  in  his  tillage, 

His  horses  and  his  cart; 
Then  care  away, 
And  wend  along  with  me. 

Our  clothing  is  good  sheep-skins, 
Gray  russet  for  our  wives; 
'Tis  warmth,  and  not  gay  clothing, 
That  doth  prolong  our  lives; 

Then  care  away, 

And  wend  along  with  me. 
166 


SIMPLICITY 

The  ploughman,  though  he  labour  hard, 
Yet  on   the  holiday, 
No  emperor  so  merrily 
Doth  pass  the  time  away; 

Then  care  away, 

And  wend  along  with  me. 


This  is  not  half  the  happiness 

The  countryman  enjoys; 

Though  others  think  they  have  as  much, 

Yet  he  that  says  so  lies; 

Then  come  away,  turn 

Countryman  with  me. 
^    LjV 


Joseph  Chalkhill. 


What  a  pleasure  to  give  true  happiness  to  one's 
friends  by  arranging  entertainments,  not  to  dis- 
play one's  magnificence  nor  to  prove  that  one  is 
up  to  the  conventional  standard,  but  in  a  way 
to  make  them  really  happy!  How  very  rarely 
does  it  enter  into  the  thought  of  one  who  gives 
the  banquet  or  reception,  to  make  this  group  of 
people  enjoy  an  unclouded  hour;  to  seek  to 
relieve  them  from  care  and  anxiety.  If  this 
were  the  thought,  many  things  would  be  done 
which  are  not  attempted,  and  other  things  which 
are  done  would  be  left  undone. 


167 


Felix  Jtdle 


THE  VALUE  OF 

The  poor,  it  is  said,  are  peculiarly  incited  by 
their  condition  to  envy;  and  yet  are  we  sure 
that  there  is  less  envy  among  the  rich,  that 
there  are  fewer  jealousies  and  heartburnings 
growing  out  of  competitions  and  neglects  in 
fashionable  life,  than  spring  from  indigence?  I 
am  not  sure  that  there  is  more  discontent  among 
the  needy  than  among  those  who  abound.  I 
incline  to  think,  that,  on  the  whole,  there  is 
among  the  latter  less  submission  to  God's  Provi- 
dence; and  for  this  plain  reason,  that  success 
and  abundance  increase  self-will. 

William   Ellery   Charming. 

&        £?        & 

It  is  incontestable  that  in  striving  against  the 
feverish  will  to  shine,  in  ceasing  to  make  the 
satisfaction  of  our  desires  the  end  of  our  activity, 
in  returning  to  modest  tastes,  to  the  true  life, 
we  shall  labour  for  the  unity  of  the  family. 

Charles  Wagner. 


Ply,  Vanity,  thy  winged  feet! 
Ambition,  hew  thy  rocky  stair! 
Who  envies  him  who  feeds  on  air 
The  icy  splendour  of  his  seat? 


Keep  to  your  lofty  pedestals! 
The  safer  plain  below  I  choose. 


J.   G.    Whittier. 


SIMPLICITY 


Let  us  remember  that  it  is  the  little  things  that 
make  up  the  atmosphere.  The  kind  word  to  the 
child,  the  little  faultfinding,  the  little  nagging, — 
it  is  just  these  little  tiny  things  that  make  the 
comfort  or  discomfort  of  the  home. 

Minot  J.  Savage. 
*       *       * 
We  ought  to  pray  in  simplicity. 

Marcus  Murelius. 

Go  on  in  all  simplicity;  do  not  be  so  anxious  to 
win  a  quiet  mind,  and  it  will  be  all  the  quieter. 
Do  not  examine  so  closely  into  the  progress  of 
your  soul.  Do  not  crave  so  much  to  be  perfect, 
but  let  your  spiritual  life  be  formed  by  your 
duties,  and  by  the  actions  which  are  called  forth 
by  circumstances.  Do  not  take  overmuch  thought 
for  to-morrow.  God,  who  has  led  you  safely  on 
so  far,  will  lead  you  on  to  the  end. 

St.  Francis  tie  Sales. 


The  poor  in  spirit  —  the  humble,  teachable, 
simple  minds  that  know  the  bounds  of  their 
ignorance,  that  know  the  depths  of  their  own 
sinfulness,  that  can  bear  to  have  their  faults  cor- 
rected, that  can  look  afar  off  and  not  claim  any 
spiritual  perfections  that  do  not  belong  to  them, 
that  are  content  with  saying,  in  silence  and 
169 


THE  VALUE  OF 

solitude,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner "  — 
these  little  thought-of  men,  despised  often  both 
by  the  religious  and  irreligious,  have  their  place 
in  "  the  kingdom  of  God,"  which,  as  by  rightful 
possession,  is  "  theirs." 

Dean  Stanley. 


The  fewer  our  wants,  the  nearer  we  resemble 
he  gods. 

Socrates. 


RETIREMENT 
Inscription  in  a  hermitage 

Beneath  this  stony  roof  reclined, 
I  soothe  to  peace  my  pensive  mind; 
And  while,  to  shade  my  lowly  cave, 
Embowering  elms  their  umbrage  wave; 
And  while  the  maple  dish  is  mine  — 
The  beechen  cup,  unstained  with  wine  — 
I  scorn  the  gay,  licentious  crowd, 
Nor  heed  the  toys  that  deck  the  proud. 

Within  my  limits,  lone  and  still, 
The  blackbird  pipes  in  artless  trill; 
Fast  by  my  couch,  congenial  guest, 
The  wren  has  wove  her  mossy  nest; 
From  busy  scenes  and  brighter  skies, 
170 


SIMPLICITY 


To   lurk  with  innocence,  she  flies, 
Here  hopes  in  safe  repose  to  dwell, 
Nor  aught  suspects  the  sylvan  celL 

At  morn  I  take  my  customed  round, 
To  mark  how  buds  yon  shrubby  mound, 
And  every  opening  primrose  count, 
That  trimly  paints  my  blooming  mount; 
Or  o'er  the  sculptures,  quaint  and  rude, 
That  grace  my  gloomy  solitude, 
I  teach  in  winding  wreaths  to  stray 
Fantastic  ivy's  gadding  spray. 

At  eve,  within  yon  studious  nook, 

I  ope  my  brass  embossed  book, 

Portrayed  with  many  a  bold  deed 

Of  martyrs,  crowned  with  heavenly  meed; 

Then,  as  my  taper  waxes  dim, 

Chant,  ere  I  sleep,  my  measured  hymn, 

And  at  the  close,  the  gleams  behold 

Of  parting  wings,  bedropt  with  gold. 

^^^^^te^  Lm\  V  ^r     J  f^& 

While  such  pure  joys  my  bliss  create, 
Who  but  would  smile  at  guilty  state? 
Who  but  would  wish  his  holy  lot 
In  calm  oblivion's  humble  grot? 
Who  but  would  cast  his  pomp  away, 
To  take  my  staff,  and  amice  gray; 
And  to  the  world's  tumultuous  stage 
Prefer  the  blameless  hermitage? 

Thomas   Warton. 


THE  VALUE  OF 


us  through  the  common  days 
The  level  stretches,  white  with  dust, 
When  thought  is  tired,  and  hands  upraise 
Their  burdens  feebly,  since  they  must. 
In  days  of  slowly  fretting  care, 
Then  most  we  need  the  strength  of  prayer. 

Margaret  E.  Songster. 


When  I  consider  how  my  light  is  spent 
Ere  half  my  days,  in  this  dark  world  and  wide, 
And  that  one  talent  which  is  death  to  hide 
Lodged  with  me  useless,  though  my  soul  more 
bent 

To  serve  therewith  my  Maker,  and  present 
My  true  account,  lest  He  returning  chide, — 
Doth  God  exact  day-labour,  light  denied? 
I   fondly  ask:  —  But  Patience,  to  prevent 

That  murmur,  soon  replies;   God  doth  not  need 
Either  man's  work,  or  His  own  gifts:  who  best 
Bear  His  mild  yoke,  they  serve  Him  best:    His 
state 

Is  kingly;   thousands  at  His  bidding  speed 
And  post  o'er  land  and  ocean  without  rest:  — 
They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait. 

John  Milton. 

172 


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